Orange County Water District: Testing the Waters

Energy Executive Spotlight
Written by Eric Slack
Thursday, 31 January 2008
Mike Markus tells us how technological innovation and public outreach is protecting Southern California’s water supply. Forget oil. Water is the most important natural resource on the planet today. For the Orange County Water District (OCWD), finding innovative solutions to the heavy demand for water by Southern California’s expanding population is an unending challenge. Mike Markus, General Manager “In California, water concerns have been elevated to a state-wide level,” said Mike Markus, OCWD’s general manager. “People are becoming more aware of the problem, and we’ve spent a considerable amount of money on public outreach.” Taking the plunge Here are some fun facts about good old H20. The planet is covered by water over 75% of its surface, yet only 3% of that water is fresh. Two-thirds of fresh water is trapped in glaciers and the polar ice caps. And, of course, life as we know it cannot exist without water. Southern California is an arid environment, its almost desert-like conditions making the area prone to drought. OCWD was established by the state legislature in 1933 to oversee the county’s water requirements. It is a special district, governed by a 10-member board of directors. Three board members are appointed by cities, while the other seven are publicly elected. Today OCWD serves more than 2 million Orange County residents. Although the area’s population isn’t growing as fast as it did 40 years ago, Orange County added about 5% to its population since the 2000 census. This only increases the burden on the area’s water supply. About 70% of the water OCWD supplies to residents comes from the local groundwater basin, with one of the main sources being the local Santa Ana River. The remaining 30% is made up of imported water purchased from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. That water comes from Northern California or the Colorado River. But with new restrictions on Northern California’s water supply due to an endangered species of smelt, and an eight-year drought affecting the Colorado River, OCWD finds itself looking for ways to make up the shortfall. About 15 years ago, a solution was proposed. It took that long to perfect the technology, but OCWD today stands at the forefront of a major breakthrough in groundwater recycling. In cooperation with the Orange County Sanitation District (OCSD), OCWD constructed a $480 million Groundwater Replenishment (GWR) System. Instead of sending millions of gallons of sewer water into the ocean, the plant runs it through an advanced purification system. It produces 70 million gallons of water per day, enough to serve approximately 500,000 people. The plant began operating on January 10th. Without the cooperation between OCWD and OCSD, this project may never have happened. “The sanitation district collects and treats domestic waste and sends it to the ocean. They needed to build a second ocean outfall, because the volume of water in the pipes exceeded the volume of their ocean outfall in peak weather events,” Markus said. “Rather than build a second outfall, we agreed to act as their second outfall, and they contributed half of the capital costs of the project.” The system creates nearly distilled water through a process of microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and UV light with hydrogen peroxide. The water is then used for two purposes. First, there is a seawater barrier along the coast where half the water is injected into the ground to prevent seawater from moving inland and contaminating the groundwater basin. The other half is pumped to a recharge area, where it is allowed to naturally filter into the ground. After one year the water reaches a point where it is extracted and put into the distribution system. Since the system just kicked off this year, OCWD has yet to see the full fruits of its labor. Swimming upstream At least the system is up and running. Similar projects in other parts of the state failed to get off the ground because they became politicized or didn’t have the technical expertise for success. OCWD invested heavily in research, equipment, and community support to make sure this badly needed project got underway. First, the district has its own research department on site at its Fountain Valley headquarters. The company also did a lot of pilot testing with its equipment suppliers, who remain closely involved in the project. Not only did OCWD work to improve filtration mechanisms, it also used a state-of-the-art process control software system to run the plant around the clock. Four operators are always on shift, and a full-time trainer makes sure the operators are up to speed on all the equipment at the plant. OCWD also improved its asset management system, although Markus said that process isn’t done yet. “We’d like to integrate between our asset management system and the process control system,” he said. “For example, if an alarm in the plant says a pump is failing, we want the asset management system to instantly process a work order for a technician to go and fix the problem.” As for community outreach, OCWD spent $4 million during the last five years to create a robust public outreach program. Representatives have given around 120 talks per year to anyone who will listen. The result has been the support of average residents and political leaders, so much so that the project encountered no opposition whatsoever. The project also drew heavy attention from other entities looking for answers to their own water questions. In fact a group from Singapore already built an 8 million gallon system modeled after OCWD’s project. The battle to ensure a plentiful supply of clean water for Orange County residents and beyond continues for now, but this could be a beacon for communities with similar problems. Groups in other parts of California, Florida, Colorado, and even Australia are looking at groundwater replenishment as a viable option to their own water shortages. Markus hopes OCWD’s GWR system will lead others to the trough. “We’d like to expand the project almost immediately, but regionally we have to develop a water portfolio. We preach conservation, and people are doing their part, installing low-flush toilets and low-flow showerheads,” he said. “You’ll also see desalination as part of that portfolio. We need to look at these sources of water so we can sustain the population and the economy here and to a certain extent help to drought-proof the region.”

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