Padre Dam Municipal Water District celebrated the grand opening of its Advanced Water Purification Demonstration Facility and tour program. The demonstration facility will use advanced water purification technologies to purify and test approximately 100,000 gal of recycled water each day.
“California’s severe drought brings into focus the importance of Padre Dam’s efforts to develop a local water supply with our Advanced Water Purification Project. The grand opening of our demonstration facility could not have come at a more appropriate time—on the heels of the lowest recorded snowpack in California’s history,” said Allen Carlisle, CEO and general manager of Padre Dam. “The full-scale Advanced Water Purification Project has the potential to provide a reliable, drought-proof water source that is up to 20% of Padre Dam’s current drinking water supply.”
During the Demonstration Project, Padre Dam’s Advanced Water Purification Demonstration Facility will take recycled water through four advanced water treatment steps—free chlorine disinfection, membrane filtration, reverse osmosis and advanced oxidation (ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide). At this time, the demonstration facility will produce approximately 100,000 gal of purified water each day. The water will be vigorously tested to ensure it meets the high quality water standards of the State Water Resources Control Board’s Division of Drinking Water’s stringent public health objectives.
If the demonstration facility is deemed successful and the project moves forward, the water would be injected into the Santee groundwater basin, withdrawn and treated again prior to distribution as drinking water.
Additionally, Padre Dam is working with Helix Water District, the city of El Cajon and the county of San Diego to study the feasibility of developing an expanded East County Advanced Water Purification Program. The study will focus on the possibility of expanding Padre Dam’s proposed Advanced Water Purification Project to accommodate and treat wastewater from the other agencies’ service areas in order to provide a new drought proof water supply. This expanded program could produce up to 10 million gal of water per day.
Source: Padre Dam Municipal Water District
