Simi Valley to Fund Water Recycling Study

The Simi Valley City Council wants to know if millions of gallons of treated sewer water now being dumped into the Arroyo Simi can be recycled and sold for agricultural and industrial uses.

The council, acting as the Simi Valley Sanitation District Board of Directors, voted 4 to 0 Monday night to spend $30,000 to hire an engineering firm to determine if a reclamation program is economical.

The study is expected to take four months once a contract has been awarded. It will be funded with district money from the 1989-90 budget, city officials said. The study will determine the cost of reclaiming the water, the amount of revenue that would be generated by the reclamation program and how it will be funded, officials said.

Councilwoman Vicky Howard, who has been pushing for the study, said using the water to irrigate schoolyards, golf courses and fields would help ease the city’s water shortage. The reclamation program also would generate an undetermined amount of money for the city, officials said.

“I think it’s a viable program,” Howard said. “We have to utilize the water that’s coming into the area and being wasted. The water coming from the sanitation treatment plant is relatively good water and could be used for agricultural, industrial and recreational uses.”

About 9 million gallons of treated sewer water per day is dumped into the Arroyo Simi, which serves as a flood-control channel, said Ronald C. Coons, director of the city Public Works Department. That water could be recycled and used for various irrigation programs, Coons said.

While not suitable for drinking, reclaimed water could be used to irrigate golf courses, landscaped freeway medians, schoolyards and certain agricultural fields, as well as for industrial and commercial landscaping, Coons said.

Waste Management Inc., operator of the Simi Valley Landfill, has already expressed interest in using reclaimed water if a program is implemented.

“The water would be used for truck washing and irrigation of landscaping for aesthetics and erosion control,” said Mike Williams, general manager of Waste Management. “It would be a significant savings for us and for sure be a better way to go as far as resources.”

Coons said the city conducted a waste-water reclamation study in 1979. That study found that more than $10.2 million would be needed to implement a reclamation program, which would involve building a pump station at the sanitation plant site, water storage facilities and a network of pipelines to carry water to customers.

“It did not prove to be an economically viable project” and the project was shelved, Coons said.

Now, with the statewide drought in its fourth year--causing some cities, including Ventura and Santa Barbara, to adopt mandatory water-saving measures--Simi Valley has decided to take another look at a reclamation program, Coons said.

While such a program would be an expensive undertaking for the city, at least two sources have proposed paying some of the costs, Coons said.

Officials of the Metropolitan Water District, the largest supplier of water in the east county, and the State Water Resources Control Board have said they may offer rebates or low-interest loans for water reclamation projects.

Thousand Oaks has applied to the state for rights to use about 13,000 acre-feet of treated sewer water it now dumps into the Conejo Creek. The city wants to sell the water to farmers on the parched Oxnard Plain.