Toilet to Tap L.A. May Flush Old Fears of Water Reuse

By KERRY CAVANAUGH, STAFF WRITER

Eight years after Los Angeles leaders killed a multimillion- dollar water-recycling project amid vitriolic debate over politics and safety, the dubiously dubbed “toilet to tap” plan is back.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has made recycled water the centerpiece of his 20-year water plan, and now the one-time critic has become the leading proponent for purifying sewage and wastewater and returning it to the drinking-water supply.

But as Villaraigosa and the Department of Water and Power prepare to pitch the next generation of recycled water, the question remains whether political, scientific — and perhaps more importantly, public — opinions have changed over the last eight years.

DWP General Manager H. David Nahai believes they have: The science on recycled water is better, the area’s water shortage is more severe, the public is more environmentally aware, and the DWP now is more savvy about public relations.

“We’ve learned the lessons of the past, especially as far as communication goes,” Nahai said. “We’re putting ourselves in a position to roll out this program very publicly so that nobody feels that anything has been hidden or that there is anything to be suspicious or fearful about.”

Observers of politics and water issues agree that the climate is very different in 2008 from what it was years ago, when the proposal drew a passionate — and decidedly negative — outcry.

California is in the middle of a drought, and global warming is expected to lighten the Sierra snowpack that holds much of the state’s water supply. Meanwhile, court decisions have limited how much water can be imported to Southern California, even as the population keeps growing.

“Times have radically changed,” said Steve Erie, professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego, and author of “Beyond Chinatown,” which chronicles the history of Southern California’s water supply.

“Not only do you have the specter of drought, but if the governor declares a water emergency, we’re talking about rationing imposed statewide.

“What was an option 10 years ago is increasingly becoming a necessity. We don’t have the luxury anymore of ignoring the ‘yuck factor’ of recycled water.”

Orange County model

Ironically, in the current push for recycled water, Villaraigosa has found his greatest ally in conservative Orange County.

Last year the Orange County Water District opened the world’s largest plant dedicated to indirect “potable reuse” — the technical term for sending purified sewage and wastewater back into the groundwater supply that is a source of drinking water.

Thanks to an extensive, five-year public education campaign, Orange County residents embraced the plan, and their political leaders boast that their region will be better prepared to deal with future droughts.

The Orange County campaign served as a model in public outreach, and the plant is now the standard for other cities and counties considering recycled water.

The $500million plant added a fourth level of treatment above what L.A. had built into its recycled-water system in the late 1990s. That fourth level includes microfiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet light, all of which remove bacteria, pathogens, pesticides and pharmaceuticals.

The DWP has said it would model its proposed plant on the Orange County system — and incorporate ever newer technology as it is developed.

And L.A. has some time: Even if there is no public outcry, by the time the DWP finishes outreach efforts, environmental studies and construction, the recycled-water system wouldn’t come on line until 2018.

Dr. Jim Crook, an environmental engineering consultant and water- reuse expert, said the advances in treatment and testing technology have provided new assurances that recycled water is safe.

“The treatment is of a higher quality, and we’ve done a lot of research to see exactly what the water quality is,” Crook said.

“The high-quality reclaimed water used for water recharge … , it meets all drinking-water standards, and it is of equal — or better — quality as traditional groundwater resources.”

That’s a big change from earlier skepticism when a 1998 report by the National Research Council called reclaimed water a “solution of last resort” for drinking.

That study helped fuel the heated opposition to the DWP project in 2000.

Crook was one of the authors of the 1998 report, but he’s now a proponent of recycled water.

“If there was a new report by the NRC,” Crook said, “that comment of ‘option of last resort’ would not be there.”

Politics the key

Still, the failure of the DWP’s earlier recycled-water project had as much to do with politics as science.

The East Valley Water Recycling Project was initiated in 1990 as a way to reduce Los Angeles’ dependence on water imported from the Owens Valley.

The system was built to pump 3.2billion gallons of water from the Tillman Water Reclamation plant in the Sepulveda Basin to the Hansen Dam spreading ground in Sun Valley.

There, it would have filtered through the pebbly soil into underground aquifers and become part of the supply that is pumped from wells, treated again, mixed with other water and piped to 70,000 households in the East San Fernando Valley and Southeast L.A.

While the project had political support when it started, it was set to come online in 2000 — when there was an election for L.A. mayor and a campaign in the San Fernando Valley to secede from the city.

The derogatory phrase “toilet to tap” eventually was popularized by East Valley City Councilman Joel Wachs, a mayoral candidate who told Valley residents that electing him would mean that “a mayor will appoint a DWP commission that will not allow your toilet water to go into your taps.”

Other candidates for mayor, including James Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa, followed Wachs’ lead and denounced the project.

Recycled water also became a rallying point for secession advocates, who called “toilet to tap” another example of unfair treatment. The Valley would drink toilet water while the Westside would get the “good” water.

DWP officials are now quick to point out that recycled water would primarily be served south of the Valley, and even on the Westside.

With the secession movement quelled and the city’s water supplies threatened, Villaraigosa now has little choice but to reconsider advocating recycled water, Erie said.

And, he added, given the success of Orange County’s project, the mayor can boost his environmental credentials without a lot of risk.

“Antonio, in a sense, is bowing to necessity. He’s also got the cover of ‘Times have changed,’” Erie said. “Remember, he wants to be the green mayor so he can wrap this up in green.”

Stigma persists

Still, the DWP has to overcome a long-standing, deep-rooted consumer distrust of recycled water and the stigma of the “toilet to tap” name.

Dave Bernardoni lives near Lake Balboa, where recycled water is used to irrigate the golf course and fill the lake.

While he supports the use of recycled water in general, he has concerns about his two young sons drinking it.

“This is really a public health issue that needs to be studied further before the city moves forward with a plan that will affect our drinking water,” he said.

The DWP “is claiming that it has new technology that allows it to convert treated wastewater into drinking water for the public, but I don’t think we can simply take their word for it.”

In particular, he and others worry that pathogens, chemicals and pharmaceuticals in the sewer system won’t be completely removed by the treatment process.

For others concerned with L.A.’s increasing population and straining infrastructure, the push for recycled water appears to be an effort to accommodate more development.

State law dictates a city cannot approve large-scale development unless it has enough water to supply the new residents.

“I’ve a nagging concern that it’s related strictly to increasing the population of Los Angeles,” Shadow Hills resident Bill Eick said of the revived recycled-water plan.

But he said he could be convinced of the necessity “if they could show me this is not just some method to increase the number of people in the L.A. basin, and that they went through the fourth stage of treatment, and that the fourth stage of treatment has been tested on people other than me.”

Eick suggested the DWP fund a community panel that would hire independent analysts to verify the DWP’s assertions of safety and the need for recycled water.

Nahai said the utility will begin its public-education campaign by this fall, with the hopes of answering community questions and quelling any concerns.

But like it or not, L.A.’s population will continue to increase, Nahai said, and the city cannot expect to buy more imported water when those supplies are strained, too.

“It isn’t just a matter of attracting immigration; it’s a matter of having to provide for our own populace, which is growing, and that is not something we can stop,” Nahai said.

“We have to take care of our own and utilize our own resources.”

Already some opponents are willing to give recycled water a second look.

Longtime Van Nuys activist Don Schultz decried toilet to tap at public hearings in 2000.

“The way it was first broached by the DWP, they didn’t do a very good sales job. It was distasteful. People just thought, ‘I don’t want to drink toilet water,’” Schultz recalled.

But after hearing that Villaraigosa wants to take another look and add extra layers of cleansing, Schultz said he would be open to the idea — especially if it would prevent water rationing and other draconian conservation measures.

But, he added, the DWP still has to reach out to the community and convince people that recycled water is safe and palatable.

“The situation has changed, and the time has come. We’re probably going to be in a drought for years to come.”

kerry.cavanaugh@dailynews.com

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(c) 2008 Daily News; Los Angeles, Calif.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.