Irvine Leads in Recycling of Its Water : District Shows the Way for Other Cities in Region

Gray-brown water enters the treatment plant, carrying everything from coffee grounds to cigarette butts.

Half a day later, after being strained, treated by waste-munching bacteria, filtered through charcoal and bubbled with chlorine gas, the sparkling clear water leaves the sewage treatment plant to be used again on front lawns, ball fields and crops.

This scenario of recycling water for nondrinking purposes, which is becoming more common in Southern California as fresh water becomes increasingly difficult to import, is old hat to the Irvine Ranch Water District. The district has been recycling water for 24 years and has consistently been singled out by water officials throughout the state and country as a model water recycler.

“What sets apart the Irvine Ranch Water District is their dedication to the (recycled water) concept,” said Bahman Sheikh, the city of Los Angeles’ reclaimed water chief. “They took some risks when people weren’t so sure it was a good idea. In fact, it was a fantastic idea.”

Nearly 1 of every 5 gallons of water used in Irvine is being used for the second time. Recycled water also accounts for two-thirds of the water used to keep public and private landscaping lush, and the city’s greenbelts green.

Although 854 water agencies in California recycle water to some extent, none compare to Irvine for its many uses or the sophisticated system in place, Sheikh said.

Farmers use reclaimed water, and the builders of the city’s residential subdivisions are required to use it to water all common-area landscaping and community parks. Developers must build all the necessary piping inside their projects.

To ease that extra cost, the district sells reclaimed water at 80% of the cost of drinking water.

Recycling allows the water district to import about 10,330 acre-feet less water each year. Because the district needs to import less water, the Metropolitan Water District gives the Irvine Ranch district a $154 rebate for every acre-foot of reclaimed water it uses, bringing in about $1.5 million a year.

The decision in the late 1960s to build a reclaimed water system on such a large scale “either was an incredibly smart or an incredibly stupid thing to do at the time,” said Ronald E. Young, general manager of the water district since 1979.

Today, he said, with the water saved and cheap price of reclaiming water, “we have to say humbly that it was a very smart thing to do.”

Even though Irvine Ranch is one of the country’s reclaimed water pioneers, the district hasn’t been content to rest on its laurels.

Next week, the water district plans to hook up a 20-story office building to the recycled water system--a first in the nation, district officials believe. Highly treated waste water will be used to flush the dozens of toilets and urinals in a commercial building.

Using treated water that perhaps was flushed from one toilet to fill the toilets in an office building is expected to cut down the building’s use of fresh drinking water by 70%. After PacTel Cellular in the Jamboree Center is hooked up, five other high-rises await connection to the reclaimed water system.

“This represents a novel use of reclaimed water and breaks away from traditional uses, like irrigating a park or growing alfalfa,” said Mark Adelson, chief of surveillance and enforcement for the Regional Water Quality Control Board.

To decrease the amount of drinking water used for flushing toilets, the water district will require all future high-rises to use reclaimed water for flushing if reclaimed water pipes run or will run near the building.

In each building destined to use reclaimed water, two sets of pipes travel through the walls and floors. One set brings in fresh water to the sinks, showers and kitchens, while the second set carries reclaimed water to toilets and urinals.

Health officials have rigid requirements concerning the use of reclaimed water. Those requirements include separating the pipes as far from each other as possible, labeling the reclaimed water connectors in English and Spanish, and wrapping every inch of pipe carrying reclaimed water with purple tape declaring, “Caution--Reclaimed Water.”

The worry is that a sloppy plumber will be called in years later to hook up a new drinking fountain and will tap into a reclaimed water pipe, said Thomas R. Holliman, an Irvine Ranch Water District engineer who has worked with the health agencies.

With the region’s drought in its fifth year, Irvine’s reclaimed water system helps, but certainly doesn’t exempt the water district from cutting back on water use, said Peer A. Swan, president of the district’s board of directors.

The beauty of the system, Swan said, is that when the Metropolitan Water District cuts back its supply of water to Southern California, Irvine has a 10-million gallon-a-day supply of reclaimed water--”and no one can shut if off.”

After the water district formed in 1961, 10 years before the city incorporated and when agriculture was the only industry in town, the district studied whether it would be cheaper to build a sewage treatment plant and use the water on agricultural fields, or take the traditional route of piping sewage to a neighboring sanitation district.

Inside the Irvine Co., which controlled the water district because seats for board members at that time were apportioned based on property ownership, there was great debate about which route to choose, said Lansing E. Eberling, then the company’s chief financial officer and a water district board member.

He favored going the reclaimed water route, but Irvine Co. engineers said the risk of an untried system wasn’t worth taking, Eberling said.

The decision to build a reclaimed water system was made partly because the Irvine Co. wanted to protect itself from reliance on imported water and partly because of the heady days of the late 1960s, he said.