Delegates Study Water Treatment

While many sightseeing tours in Southern California include the world famous Hollywood sign, Disneyland or Mann’s Chinese Theater, 17 delegates from the former Soviet Union have been taking a good look at area sewage plants.

The delegates, all water and waste-water experts from the Commonwealth of Independent States, are being hosted by the U.S. Commerce Department and have been touring American waste-water treatment facilities for the past eight weeks. Southern California is the last leg of their trip. The delegates hope to take back American know-how, technology and business contacts to Eastern Europe, where water supplies are often dangerously contaminated.

“Eighty percent of their drinking water is contaminated,” said Commerce Department official Liza Shields. “We hope trips like these will create more business opportunities, joint ventures and American exporting in this area.”

Wednesday, the delegates visited the Las Virgenes Water District in the Santa Monica Mountains, which recycles water for use in agriculture and industry. Las Virgenes, which serves more than 60,000 residents in Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Hidden Hills and Westlake Village, was chosen to demonstrate how waste water could be reclaimed for a second use and the solids filtered out could be used for composting.

Through an interpreter, Baigabul M. Tolongutov, director of an ecology laboratory in Kyrgyzstan, said the water situation in his country was similar to that of Southern California.

“One of the biggest problems we have in the republic is waste water from agricultural run-off,” he said. Pesticides and fertilizers used to increase crops endanger the water supply, he said.

Ukrainian scientist Varvara I. Krasovskaya said her country, the second-largest in the commonwealth, also has severe water shortages.

“We face the same challenges in Ukraine as you people do here,” she said.

Today and Friday the delegates will meet with waste-water business interests hoping to export their services to the former Soviet republics. This weekend they hope to take in the sights. High on their list are Disneyland, the beach and the discotheques. So far they have only seen Beverly Hills.

“We were impressed,” Krasovskaya said.