PUB00124

• Year: 1996
• Title: Layperson's Guide to Water Recycling
• CWCB Section: Water Conservation & Drought Planning
• Author: California Water Education Foundation
• Description: Layperson's Guide to Water Recycling
• Publications - Doc Type: Other

Challenges

Public outreach can dispel
uncertainties and increase
public rmderslandiflg of
recycled walel:

10

PUBLIC PERCEPTION

Gaining the public's trust has proven to be one of
the greatest challenges facing potable water
recycling projects. Several projects in recent years
have been altered or killed altogether because of
the public concern raised from them.

In the midst of the 1987-1993 drought, the Upper
San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District (Upper
San Gabriel MWD) initiated a program in 1991 to
use recycled water for recharging the San Gabriel
Aquifer, a source of drinking water for 1 million
people. Under the proposal, 16,000 acre-feet a year
of tertiary-treated eltluenl from the San Jose Creek
Water Reclamation Plant in Whittier would be spread
and percolated through more than 200 vertical feet
of sand and gravel above the groundwater basin.

The recharge project opponents publicly labeled the
proposal as one of sending water from "toilet to tap"
and understandably, the verbiage gathered much
public attention. Miller Brewery claimed to Object to
the plan because of the close proximity of the
recycled water spreading grounds to its wells -less
than 1 mile away. Fearing that possible health risks
and a negative pUblic perception associated with
recycled water could affect sales, Miller filed suit in
1994. Based on a technicality in the original project's
environmental impact report, the parties opted to
settle out of court and agreed on a modification of
the project design. The spreading basin was moved
farther downstream from the Miller plant and the
amount of recycled water that would be spread was
reduced to 10,000 acre-feet a year. The Upper
San Gabriel MWD plans to complete its $15 million
water reclamation facility in 2001.

Several other projects that planned to recycle water
for potable use have been sidelined indefinitely. The
Bay Area's Dublin San Ramon Services District
wanted to use its tully constructed, $20 million treat-
ment facility to inject recycled water into the
Livermore-Amador Valley aquifer for recharge and
potable use. But alter much prolest in 1998 by area
water users, the Zone 7 Water Agency (which
manages the drinking water supply for the area)
backed away from using project water for potable
use. Instead, the water will be treated to a lesser
degree and used to irrigate nearby sports fields,
parks, median strips and landscapes.

Similarly, the city of San Diego shelved a $154 million
proposal to recycle 15 mgd of water annually. The
project was designed to take tertiary trealed recycled

water from an existing water recycling plant, treat it
again with microfiltration, reverse osmosis, ozone
and chlorine, and then pipe the highly treated water
23 miles to the San Vicente Reservoir. There, Ihe
water would be mixed with existing supplies and sit
for approximately a year before undergoing conven-
tional drinking water treatment methods and deliv-
ery to consumers. The proposal to augment a surface
reservoir with recycled water was the first of its kind
in California and only the second in the nation.
However, the proposal met with serious opposition
and criticism by both the media and some members
of the public who felt the '10ilet to tap" (a phrase gen-
erated by the media) plan was not only too costly
(about $1,200 an acre-foot), but too risky to their
health.

A 1998 report conducted by a panel of scienlisls from
the National Water Research Institute found the
plan to be safe, but San Diego County's Science
Advisory Board issued a conflicting opinion
opposing the project on the basis there are no
guarantees the purified water would have been safe
to drink. Though city, state and federal governments
spent approximately $13 million to study the
leasibility of the project, it is no longer being
considered at this time.

Public outreach is an important component in gain-
ing public support of water recycling as exemplified
by EBMUD's Lamorinda project in 1997. Though the
plan did not involve recycled water for potable use,
it faced opposition for using tertiary treated water
(provided by the Central Contra Costa Sanitary
District) to irrigate golf courses, cemeteries, parks,
medians and school grounds in Lamorinda. Objec-
tions were raised by some in the community over
potential health impacts from the project including
those to school children playing in puddles or drinking
from sprinklers using recycled water.

Using a combination of outreach and compromise,
EBMUD was able to keep the project afloat by ad-
dressing community concerns. Through public work-
shops (including input from water experts), tours and
school education programs about recycled water;
additional studies and tests to prove a lack of serious
health threats from the project; and physical changes
to the plan (including the relocation of several pump
sites and the removal school irrigation from the first
phase of the project), EBMUD gained public support.
If all goes as planned, recycled water deliveries to
Lamorinda should begin by spring of 2001.