ORANGE COUNTY VOICES : With Reclamation, We Can Stop Wasting ‘Waste’ Water : Public water: Reuse offers a feasible way to replace much of the water now imported into the area, making us less vulnerable.

We can respond to four consecutive years of drought in any number of ways: We can wring our hands, bury our heads in the sand or take positive steps to deal with the problem. One of those steps should be an increase in the reclamation of so-called “waste” water. The principle is simple: For every gallon of water that is reused, a gallon of fresh water is saved.

Orange County depends on water imported from northern California and the Colorado River for about half of its supply. That makes us vulnerable to droughts in Northern California and in the Colorado River basin.

Moreover, this area will experience a 50% cut in the amount of water imported through the Colorado River Aqueduct over the next decade. And because Proposition 9 was voted down in 1982, there is no program to construct the peripheral canal to carry additional State Water Project supplies from the north. There are simply no new cost-effective sources available for imported water.

It is, however, entirely feasible, largely through reclamation, that local sources can be developed to replace a significant amount of the water now being brought in from outside sources.

A major goal of the Orange County Water District which manages the area’s ground water supply, is to reclaim 100 million gallons of waste water every day. If that can be achieved, local sources could meet as much as 80% of the water demand within the water district. The district now supplies about 65% of the water used by 2 million of the county’s 2.4 million residents.

The idea of using water more than once is not new. Reclamation in California dates from the 19th Century, and it is now used in many public water supply programs.

Last fall, a statewide survey of agencies involved in waste water reclamation showed 87 projects that could, if all are implemented, reclaim 600,000 acre-feet of water annually. That is enough water to supply the entire population of Orange County for more than a year. The Orange County Water District is the lead agency or a participant in projects that would reclaim nearly 20% of that total.

Nearly $2 billion is needed to build the projects; unfortunately, only a little over 7% of that is available so far. Water agencies hope the Legislature will pass a bill that would authorize $200 million in bonds to fund low-interest loans for water reclamation projects. If approved, the measure will appear on the November ballot.

Already under construction here is a landscape irrigation project, appropriately named Green Acres, that will supply treated reclaimed water for parks, golf courses, schoolyards and greenbelts in Fountain Valley, Santa Ana and Costa Mesa. The first phase of this project will supplant about 5,000 acre-feet per year of imported supplies. It will be operational in the summer of 1991, at an initial cost of about $25 million. We plan to more than double the project’s original capacity within the next five years and to add the cities of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach to the distribution area.

The OCWD long ago established a tradition of innovation. Its Water Factory 21 in Fountain Valley has been reclaiming waste water since 1975, under the scrutiny of regulating agencies. This plant supplies highly treated municipal waste water for injection into the OCWD seawater intrusion barrier and for recharging ground water. The plant was recently refurbished so that it can produce up to 15 million gallons a day, about twice its former capacity. The district ground water management plan proposes a substantial expansion of Water Factory 21 to supply wells that would inject drinking-quality reclaimed water directly into the ground water basin.

Every day, 250 million gallons of “used” water flows past OCWD headquarters in Fountain Valley and into the Pacific Ocean. Yet treated waste water is perhaps the most dependable water supply available today.

Waste water reclamation is a sensible solution to the supply-demand problem. It makes a lot of sense, especially in light of the drought, to use local water sources to fill local water needs.