Metropolitan Water District’s program to create a new water supply for Southern California by purifying water currently being sent to the ocean received a funding boost from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton announced the $99.2 million in funding for Pure Water Southern California at an event held at the regional recycled water program’s demonstration plant in Carson, where she was joined by U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, U.S. Rep. Grace Napolitano, California State Water Resources Control Board Chair Joaquin Esquivel and representatives from Metropolitan, the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, and other water agencies that were awarded federal funds.
“Adequate, resilient and safe water supplies are fundamental to the health, economy and security of our communities. Investment in water recycling and reuse are key to stretching limited water supplies, making systems more resilient to the effects of aridification in the American West,” Touton said. “Water recycling is an innovative and cost-effective tool that can help make our water supplies more reliable, helping communities find new sources to meet their needs today, but most importantly to meet our needs in the future.”
Metropolitan and the Sanitation Districts are partnering on the Pure Water project, which will take cleaned wastewater that is currently sent to the ocean and purify it using an advanced, multi-stage purification process to produce high-quality drinking water. If approved by Metropolitan’s board, at full scale, the program will produce 150 million gallons of water each day – enough to meet the demands of 500,000 homes – that will be delivered to groundwater basins, industrial facilities and two of Metropolitan’s water treatment plants.
The newly announced federal funds will help advance design work and improvements to existing infrastructure needed for the project. Construction could begin as soon as 2026 and the first water could be delivered in 2032.
Metropolitan General Manager Adel Hagekhalil thanked Commissioner Touton and the Biden administration for their investment in the Pure Water program.
“Ensuring Southern California has a reliable water supply takes us all working together. And it also benefits the entire state and country, not just the 19 million people who live here. Our businesses and industries are an economic engine for the nation. And we need water to make that engine run,” Hagekhalil said.
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