The Santa Clara Valley Water District partnered with Somos Mayfair, a nonprofit, community-based organization that serves the Latino community in East San José, to provide tours of the Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center in Spanish and English. The Latino Community Tour Day was July 25, 2016.
Morning Spanish tours were offered for the Somos Mayfair participants and an additional tour was open in the afternoon for other Latino community organizations or community members. The day's events included tours, educational activities for kids and a taste test station for those who wish to sample the final treated water.
The Silicon Valley Advanced Water Purification Center, which opened in 2014, takes treated wastewater that would otherwise have been discharged into the San Francisco Bay and purifies it with three processes: microfiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet light. It provides up to 8 million gpd of highly purified water that meets California’s primary and secondary drinking water quality standards.
Currently, the water produced at the advanced purification center is blended with and enhances the quality of recycled water. However, the purification center demonstrates that the highly purified water can be used for a variety of purposes, including potentially expanding Silicon Valley’s future drinking water supplies.
Source: Santa Clara Valley Water Distrcit
