2 Big Projects to Help County Reclaim Treated Sewage Water : Conservation: The $185-million projects will divert purified waste water for industrial uses and irrigation.

In a bid to conserve water supplies in much of Los Angeles County, officials are planning to divert billions of gallons of treated waste water to parks, golf courses, freeway greenbelts, cemeteries, oil refineries and factories for landscape irrigation and industrial uses.

By substituting reclaimed waste water for drinking-quality water in sprinkler systems and industrial operations, water officials from El Segundo to Downey hope to stretch supplies of local ground water and imported water. The flow of imported water from the Colorado River and the eastern Sierra Nevada has been cut in recent years by a combination of drought and legal rulings.

“It is basic conservation,” said Richard W. Atwater, general manager of the West Basin and Central Basin municipal water districts, which supply water to 2.5 million residents in the South Bay, Westside and Southeast Los Angeles County. “You are getting two uses out of every gallon of water.”

Atwater said two proposed water reclamation projects--costing a total of $185 million--are scheduled to be built by the water districts over the next four years. The projects are expected to be funded by a myriad of local, state and federal sources, including rebates offered by the giant Metropolitan Water District.

In the larger of the two proposed projects, officials from the West Basin district are developing a $175-million plan for the South Bay to reclaim 22.8 billion gallons of waste water a year from the city of Los Angeles’ Hyperion sewage treatment plant in Playa del Rey. Water district and Los Angeles officials say it would be the largest waste-water reclamation project in California, conserving enough water annually to supply a city the size of Oakland.

The treated sewage water, which is now dumped into Santa Monica Bay, would be piped from Hyperion to a more intensive treatment plant, probably in El Segundo, and then distributed through underground pipelines to a variety of users in the South Bay. The network is expected to serve the Chevron and Mobil refineries and may be extended to Culver City and Los Angeles International Airport, officials said.

By reusing water from the Hyperion plant, Los Angeles city officials said they would address another pressing environmental concern: the dumping of waste water into Santa Monica Bay. The West Basin proposal would reduce the plant’s outflow into the bay by about 20%, the officials said.

“It is a win-win situation all around,” said Bahman Sheikh, director of the city’s newly created office of water reclamation. The second proposed project, sponsored by the Central Basin district, involves building a 26-mile network of pipelines that would transport waste water from the Los Coyotes reclamation plant in Cerritos to at least seven cities along the path of the Century Freeway. The $10-million project initially would reclaim about 1.9 billion gallons of water annually, but could double in size as more users become interested, officials said.

The Los Coyotes plant, operated by the county Sanitation Districts, already supplies reclaimed water to Cerritos, Bellflower and Lakewood for irrigation of parks, schools and median strips. The new network would provide water to Downey, South Gate, Lynwood, Paramount, Compton, Norwalk and Bellflower, as well as to Caltrans for irrigation along freeways.

Long Beach would not be part of the network because it receives reclaimed water from a treatment plant on Willow Street, also operated by the Sanitation Districts.

Eventually, the West Basin and Central Basin water districts hope to connect the Hyperion and Los Coyotes networks so that cities across southern Los Angeles County would be assured a regular supply of reclaimed water, even if the flow from one reclamation plant were cut off because of repairs or an emergency.

Construction on the Century Freeway network is scheduled to begin next spring. Officials predict work on the network linked to Hyperion will start in 1992.

“Sewage is forever, that is our motto in this business,” said Earle Hartling, water reuse coordinator for the Sanitation Districts, which distributes about half of the reclaimed water from its 10 reclamation treatment plants. “No matter how bad a drought gets, there will always be people taking showers, brushing their teeth, washing their clothes and flushing their toilets. There will always be water coming down.”

The Metropolitan Water District, which acts as a wholesaler of imported water to local water districts throughout Southern California, has projected that supplies could fall short of demand by up to 12% in the coming year. The agency is urging its member communities to restrict water consumption and has warned that mandatory rationing may be necessary if conditions do not improve.

“We are all in this together,” said Jack van der Linden, head of Paramount’s water department, which plans to irrigate about half of its greenbelt areas with reclaimed water from the Century Freeway project. “The problem with the (recycled) water is you know where it comes from. Once you get over that notion, you have no problem.”

The five-member West Basin district board, representing cities from Malibu to Rancho Palos Verdes, is expected to signal its commitment to the Hyperion project next week by appropriating $375,000 for a detailed engineering report and an environmental review. Thus far, the West Basin district and the Metropolitan Water District have jointly funded a $25,000 study of the proposal.

“We are basically coming up with a new water supply,” said West Basin board member Ed Little of Culver City. “We are getting a great deal of cooperation from (Chevron and Mobil oil companies) because we will be able to provide them with a consistent supply of water. Right now, we could technically shut down the refineries if the drought conditions continue.”

Rod Spackman, spokesman for the Chevron refinery in El Segundo, said the company would use the reclaimed water in cooling towers and for landscaping. A consultant’s report released last month estimates that Chevron could use 4.2 billion gallons of reclaimed water a year.

“We are enthusiastic about any program that would help improve our water use,” Spackman said. “We are trying to find a variety of applications to meet our water-reduction goals.”

Water district officials expect to inject about one-third of the reclaimed water from Hyperion into the ground between Los Angeles International Airport and Torrance beach to serve as a barrier preventing salt water from intruding into coastal aquifers. The aquifers, underground layers of porous rock and sand, serve as a major source of drinking water for coastal communities.

The so-called West Coast Basin Barrier Project now injects potable water supplied by the Metropolitan Water District. Officials estimate that they could save about 8 billion gallons of MWD water annually if they converted to reclaimed water.

Because of the variety of potential users, the proposed reclamation plant near Hyperion would produce water with different levels of treatment. For instance, water used for irrigation of public areas, such as parks and golf courses, would have to meet standards set by the state Department of Health Services for bacteriological quality. Signs also would have to be posted notifying the public that the facilities are irrigated with reclaimed water.

Hartling, the water reuse expert for the Sanitation Districts, said he often drinks the reclaimed water when giving tours of reclamation treatment plants, although the water is not intended for human consumption and cannot be distributed for potable uses. He said he drinks the water to demonstrate how safe it is.

“I have been doing it for five years, and I have never been sick,” Hartling said. “The taste is a little chlorine-like because we have a residual of about 2.5 parts per million of chlorine to prevent regrowth of bacteria and virus in the redistribution system. It also keeps the slime growth to a minimum.”

Los Angeles city officials, under pressure to find ways to reuse waste water, have embraced the Hyperion proposal, and have even suggested that waste water from the sewage plant be distributed further east to cities along the Century Freeway corridor. Less than 1% of the city’s waste water is reclaimed for use outside sewage treatment plants.