Lawsuit May Delay Plan to Use Reclaimed Water for Irrigation

A plan to offer four of Los Angeles’ biggest lawn waterers reclaimed water from a San Fernando Valley sewage-treatment plant may be delayed by a lawsuit filed by one of the potential customers, water officials said Tuesday.

The suit, filed last week by Forest Lawn Memorial Parks, is intended to force the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to conduct an environmental-impact study of the project, said Ted Brandt, Forest Lawn vice president for communications.

“We are not against using reclaimed water at all,” Brandt said. The cemetery wants a written guarantee that the water will not be polluted, he said.

Brandt said Forest Lawn is mainly concerned with the impact of the state’s anti-toxics initiative, Proposition 65. If it participates in the project, the cemetery might face legal action for violations if hazardous substances are found in its irrigation system, he said. Under the terms of the initiative, the DWP would be exempt, he said.

With the so-called Greenbelt Project, the city hopes to save up to 3 million gallons a day of increasingly scarce drinking water by offering the four customers discounts to take treated waste water that normally would be poured in the ocean.

The reclaimed water would meet health standards for irrigation water, according to Walter Hoye, the DWP’s chief planning engineer.

Surprising Development

Hoye said the Los Angeles Superior Court suit was surprising because Forest Lawn--which has a cemetery north of Griffith Park--and the three other customers, all in the same area, have said they are eager to use reclaimed water. Water officials had hoped to start work this summer on a system for delivering that water. Hoye said he is confident that an agreement can be reached.

For five years, DWP has been negotiating with Forest Lawn, adjoining Mt. Sinai Memorial Park, Lakeside Golf Club in Toluca Lake and Universal Studios to create the system to irrigate their expansive grounds with reclaimed water from the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in the Sepulveda Basin.

Water leaving the Tillman plant flows into the Los Angeles River. In the project, it would be diverted by a dam just north of Forest Lawn to a second water-treatment facility, then pumped to the customers.

Besides saving drinking water, the program would have two benefits for customers, Hoye said. It would be offered at a price 10% below current rates and would be available year-round, while lawn watering with drinking supplies might be prohibited during a drought.

Hoye said the project has been approved by state health and water-quality agencies.

In Los Angeles, reclaimed waste water already is used to irrigate portions of Griffith Park and plantings along a short stretch of the Golden State Freeway, he said.

Forest Lawn is planning to use reclaimed water at cemeteries in Glendale and Long Beach, Brandt said. He said those cities have agreed to guarantee that the water meets government standards.

If DWP agrees to a similar binding agreement, “we’d probably drop the lawsuit,” Brandt said. With such an agreement, no environmental report would be necessary, he said.