WateReuse California Review - August 2023

On Friday, WRCA submitted its comment letter on the draft statewide regulations for Direct Potable Reuse. On September 7, the Water Board will hold a workshop to discuss the regulations. As part of the workshop, there will be a panel of agencies that will discuss outstanding issues identified in the WRCA letter.  Participants will include:

Dave Pedersen, General Manager (President of WateReuse CA)

Las Virgenes Municipal Water District

Rick Callender, Chief Executive Officer

Valley Water

David Pettijohn, Director of Water Resources

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

Deven Upadhyay, Assistant General Manager

Metropolitan Water District of Southern California

Shane Trussell, President

Trussell Technologies Inc.

Final adoption of the regulations by the Water Board is planned for mid-December 2023.

On Friday, August 18 the California State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) released the highly anticipated Making Conservation a California Way of Life (conservation) regulations. The draft conservation regulations have many components, and many agencies remain concerned about compliance. However, after four years of working on the reuse components of the regulations, it appears that WRCA was generally successful in protecting the interests of the recycled water community. WRCA has reviewed the language.

On July 25, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) held a workshop on the draft Recycled Water Resource Management Strategy (RMS). WRCA participated in the workshop and provided joint written comments alongside our association partner CASA.

By: Ezra David Romero, KQED

When recycled for drinking, the millions of gallons of water that Bay Area residents flush down toilets and showers every day could be cleaner than the pristine Hetch Hetchy water that flows from many taps in the region, according to a top California water official.

“Both are drinkable and pure,” said Darrin Polhemus, deputy director of the drinking water division of the state’s Water Resources Control Board. Recycled water for human consumption, he added, will be so clean that workers will have to add minerals to it, because the purification process strips the water of necessary minerals that make it drinkable.

But recycling the region’s used water for drinking, a process called “direct potable reuse,” is not happening anywhere in the Bay Area — at least not yet. Polhemus’ agency, however, is working to change that by drawing up rules for how local water agencies can pump ultra-purified water straight into the pipes that connect to people’s homes.