A $5 million grant will mean clean drinking water

To ensure clean drinking water in the coming years the Orange County

Water District pulled in $5 million more in grant funding.

The State Water Resources Control Board awarded the money for the

district to use on its Ground Water Replenishment System, a joint project

of the water district and Orange County Sanitation District, designed to

provide the county with an additional source of safe, pure water for up

to 200,000 families a year.

This latest grant brings the project’s total grant funding to $62.5

million, 17% of the expected cost of the project.

Crews have begun construction on the water purification system

scheduled to be completed in 2006. The system will purify treated sewer

water currently sent to the ocean to produce near-distilled quality water

to replenish the ground-waterbasin.

The system will be at the water district and the sanitation district

in Fountain Valley and will provide up to 100,000 acre-feet of water for

the north-central part of the county. An acre foot is 326,000 gallons, or

enough water for two families of four for one year.