Water Replenishment District Celebrates 60 Years of Recycling by Water Replenishment District Nov 7, 2022 Member Submitted News PICO RIVERA – Federal officials joined the Water Replenishment District (WRD) today to celebrate the District’s 60-year record of pioneering the use of recycled water as WRD officials outlined their plans to build a sustainable and resilient water supply for the entire region in the near future. WRD’s ambitious goals were mapped out by WRD’s Board President John Allen as the agency was praised for its past successes and received a check for $15.4 million from the federal government to help pay for its recycling programs. “WRD has been a pioneer before and it will continue to be a water pioneer in the future,” said Allen. The check was presented to WRD by Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Interior Tanya Trujillo and by Congresswoman Linda Sánchez at the WRD Albert Robles Center for Water Recycling and Environmental Learning (ARC) in Pico Rivera. WRD first began to use recycled wastewater to replenish the extensive underground aquifers it manages in 1962. The project was the first of its kind in the nation. The water in the WRD-managed aquifers supplies nearly 50 percent of the water used by 43 cities with a combined population of 4 million people. Speakers at the event repeatedly noted that Southern California is experiencing drought conditions that have become the new normal for the region. All agree that water recycling will be critical to creating a sustainable water supply that does not depend on water imported from Northern California or the Colorado River; these water sources are increasingly inaccessible to Southern California because of extended droughts and legal-environmental restraints. In 2019 WRD added to its recycled water portfolio when its Albert Robles Center became operational. ARC is an advanced water treatment facility that produces about 10,000 acre feet of water per year. The water it produces meets or exceeds drinking water quality standards, and it is discharged into the adjacent spreading grounds where it percolates into the underground aquifers and is eventually pumped out for domestic use. ARC is the latest WRD recycling program but not its last. WRD has also been a leader in another treatment effort. Underlying a large portion of LA County’s coastal cities – from Manhattan Beach to Torrance – are billions of gallons of undrinkable, brackish water contaminated by seawater. Since 2001, WRD has been pumping that brackish water out of the ground and treating it at the agency’s Robert W. Goldsworthy Desalter plant so it is drinkable. In 2018, WRD invested tens of millions of dollars to nearly quadruple the amount of brackish water it was treating. Now, Goldsworthy transforms 5 million gallons of salty water into drinking water per day, representing 25 percent of Torrance’s daily water needs. The district is working on another desalter facility that will produce millions of gallons per day of drinkable water for several of its municipal water agency partners, including Torrance, Manhattan Beach and the City of LA.
