DWP Opens Water Treatment Facility
Reaching a major milestone in efforts to clean water from the San Fernando Basin, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power opened a new treatment facility in Atwater on Wednesday.
The plant will remove trichloroethylene and other contaminants found in industrial solvents from the ground water basin that extends from the northern San Fernando Valley to the Pollock Wells in Atwater.
“The entire San Fernando Valley drains down into the basin and this is the southern terminus,” said Ernest Wong, a DWP engineer.
The plant will make available 2,400 acre-feet of water a year from the 90,000-acre-feet basin, water that would cost about $1 million to buy elsewhere, DWP officials said.
The San Fernando Basin provides about 15% of Los Angeles’ water supply, the agency said.
The Pollock Wells at the southern end of the basin were shut down in the early 1980s because of contamination, some of which is thought to have come from former industrial plants in the area, officials said.
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