Cleaner drinking water at the same cost

Bryce Alderton

Equipment to clean Orange County’s drinking water will cost $5 million

less than anticipated, said officials with the Orange County Water

District.

When bids came in this week USFilter submitted the winning proposal at

$27.3 million to install microfiltration equipment that will screen out

minute particles, bacteria and some viruses.

The water district had budgeted the project at $32.5 million, said

Jenny Glasser, spokeswoman for the water district.

For residents, water district savings will mean higher quality water

without a substantial rate hike on water bills, she added.

Microfiltration uses membranes shaped like hollow straws with

microscopic pores on the sides to force water into the center of the

membrane, which then screens out the bacteria or virus.

This will be the largest use of microfiltration in one plant in the

world.

“We’re very excited the cost is coming in less than planned,” Glasser

said.

The district already saved $90,000 in December when the first section

of a 13-mile pipeline was installed from the district’s facility in

Fountain Valley to a percolation pond in Anaheim, Glasser said.

The pipeline is part of the Groundwater Replenishment System, a joint

project between the water district and the Orange County Sanitation

District, that will provide a new source of drinking water for 2.3

million north and central Orange County residents when completed in 2006.

Sewer water, treated to the full secondary level, comes to the water

district from the sanitation district.

That water will then be put through a series of purification processes

including reverse osmosis, a system used by bottled water companies,

microfiltration and the use of ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide

treatment.

These new technologies will result in drinking water that exceeds safe

drinking water standards, Glasser said.

Crews will inject half of the treated water from the sanitation

district into the underground basin near the coast to keep seawater from

contaminating the fresh water in the underground basin. The other half of

the water will be transported through a 13-mile pipeline to a percolation

pond in Anaheim. There, the water will be filtered like rain water as it

seeps into the ground and enters the county’s aquifers to become part of

the drinking water supply.