Cerritos Blossoms Even as Other Cities Scramble to Beat the Drought

While surrounding cities may see their dichondra die and their park plantings perish as the drought drags on, Cerritos has plenty of water to keep its fountains bubbling, its artificial lakes full, its 24 parks green, and its abundant street landscaping lush.

And is the city gloating?

“I would never use that term,” Mayor Ann B. Joynt said mockingly. “We never gloat, though we may be accused of it.”

Cerritos became the first city in Southeast Los Angeles County to rely exclusively on reclaimed water to irrigate all its public lands, largely because it wanted to cut its water bills. By 1985, the cost of watering its two dozen parks and its generously planted median strips had reached $157,000 a year and was still rising. Reclaimed water cost about two-thirds less than ordinary drinking water.

So the city began installing a second water system, laying pipes under its streets to carry the reclaimed water--waste water that is chemically treated until it is pure enough to use on landscaping.

“We did it when it needed to be done, and now every other city is trying to figure out how it’s going to be done,” the mayor said. The city also uses reclaimed water in its fountains and the artificial lakes in its parks.

Faced with the fourth summer of drought, other cities are trying to come up with ways to conserve water and keep the turf in their parks and the shrubbery in their median strips from dying.

Downey, for example, has pledged to cut back watering in its parks and median strips by 25% this summer. “There’s a difference between lush and healthy, and we’re going for healthy,” said William A. Ralph, Downey’s public works director.

Downey is one of several Southeast area cities participating in a plan by the Central Basin Municipal Water District to pipe reclaimed water from the Los Coyotes Sewage Treatment Plant. The plant, at the intersection of the Artesia and San Gabriel River freeways, is operated by the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts.

However, the system will not be operational until September, 1992, meaning that those cities may have to weather two more drought summers.

Long Beach has a reclaimed-water system, although some small parks have yet to be included, city officials say. Lakewood began installing such a system about a year ago, buying the reclaimed water from Cerritos, and now plans to hook into the Central Basin system.

Cerritos also buys reclaimed water from the Los Coyotes plant.

The city, with the aid of a state grant, began installing its 22-mile system in 1985. The project was completed about two years ago.

“We’re visionaries,” said Barry Rabbitt, who was a member of the Cerritos City Council when the plan for the reclaimed-water system was developed.

Cerritos was committed to a green, park-like setting for its community, Rabbitt recalls, but the council was worried about rising water bills and knew that if a drought occurred, the city might lose its turf and other flora if water was rationed.

The city golf course next to the Los Coyotes plant was already being watered with reclaimed water, so the council decided to expand the use of reclaimed water to the rest of the city. The piping project cost $8 million, of which the state Water Resources Board paid $4.5 million.

Now Cerritos sells the reclaimed water to other large water users in the city such as school districts and business parks, using a total of 571 million gallons last year, according to Ron Babel, the city’s water superintendent. The next step, said Mayor Joynt, is to figure out a plan for hooking up homeowner associations to the system.

Virginia Grebbien, district engineer for the Central Basin, said sprinkler systems owned by homeowners associations, such as those in condominium projects, can hook into the system. Individual houses, however, cannot be hooked up, Grebbien said, because there is too great a possibility that someone will take a gulp of water from a hose.