Groundwater tapped

South Coast Water District will add the first drops of locally obtained water to its distribution system by the end of the year from its new Groundwater Recovery Facility, located in Dana Point.

When the facility is fully operational, about 10% of the district’s drinking water will come from the San Juan Groundwater Basin rather than Northern California or the Colorado River, according to district officials.

Today, the district is 100% dependent on imported supplies of drinking water.

“By tapping into this new local water source, the district will reduce its reliance on imported water supplies, which are decreasing due to drought, climate change, changes in government policy and legislative decisions restricting flows to Southern California,” said Mike Dunbar, South Coast Water District general manager, in a news release.

“In a few years, we will add a second well to the facility and meet 20% of the demand for drinking water in our district with this local source,” Dunbar said. The district is permitted to extract groundwater from the San Juan Basin by the California State Water Resources Control Board.

The district provides drinking water to Dana Point, South Laguna and areas of north San Clemente. The total annual demand for potable water in the district is approximately 7,500 acre-feet per year or 2,500 million gallons.

Initially the Groundwater Recovery Facility will produce 800 acre-feet of potable water a year (260 million gallons a year; 712,000 gallons a day), making local water approximately 10% of the district’s total supply.

Ultimately, the district plans to produce 1,500 acre-feet of potable water a year (489 million gallons a year; 1.3 million gallons a day), approximately 20% of the district’s total supply.

“We built the Groundwater Recovery Facility to produce a sustainable, local supply of water for the communities we serve in the face of decreasing imported water supplies,” said Dunbar.

The agency will continue to diversify its potable supply, provide recycled water for irrigation, promote water conservation and expand water storage to assure a reliable water supply into the future, he said.

“There is no one solution to water reliability, no ‘silver bullet.’ It’s a mix of solutions “” and development of local water is an important part of that mix,” Dunbar said.

The Groundwater Recovery Facility is located on the district’s 30-acre property in Capistrano Beach, next to San Juan Creek.

The facility is designed to extract, treat and produce potable water from groundwater, utilizing state-of-the-art reverse osmosis technology. The facility will run all the time to achieve maximum yield.

The heart of the Groundwater Recovery Facility is a 22-foot-tall, 2,650 square-foot building that houses the reverse osmosis treatment system, as well as the control room for all operations.

The reverse osmosis system consists of a high-pressure pump, pressure vessels and special membrane elements that separate contaminants and total dissolved solids from the groundwater.

Basic elements of the treatment process consist of:

?Extraction of the groundwater from a well 128 feet deep at a rate of up to 800 gallons per minute.

?Pre-treatment of the groundwater with chemicals and filters in preparation for the reverse osmosis process.

?Pumping the pre-treated groundwater under high pressure through fine membranes that remove impurities and dissolved solids “” the reverse osmosis process.

?Removal of iron and manganese from some of the groundwater, due to the high content of these minerals in the San Juan Groundwater Basin.

?Post-treatment of the water to remove excess carbon dioxide and for disinfection.

South Coast Water District and its predecessor agency, the Capistrano Beach Water District, had contemplated the construction of a Groundwater Recovery Facility on San Juan Creek Property for more than 10 years.

The district began construction of the facility in 2005, and the project cost $5.8 million. Funding for the project comes from $8.8 million in long-term bonds that the former Capistrano Beach Water District sold in 1998.

The dedication ceremony for the Groundwater Recovery Facility will take place Friday for a limited number of elected officials and guests. Public tours of the facility will be announced at a later date.