Municipal Water Leader October 2019 by Water Strategies

Volume 6 Issue 9

October 2019

Amy Dorman: San Diegoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pure Water Program

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STAFF: Kris Polly, Editor-in-Chief Joshua Dill, Managing Editor Tyler Young, Writer Stephanie Biddle, Graphic Designer Eliza Moreno, Web Designer

6 San Diego’s Pure Water Program

Contents

October 2019 Volume 6, Issue 9 5 U sing Water Twice By Kris Polly 6 S an Diego’s Pure Water Program

24 H ow Eastern Provides Recycled Water to Wetlands, Farms, Power Plants, and More

28 H ow OCWD Is Addressing 12 D emonstrating the Feasibility PFAS Contamination of Large-Scale Reuse in Southern California 32 Water Sector Supports Development of National 16 P entair: Water Reuse From Water Reuse Action Plan Stadiums to Factories to Private Homes 36 H oward County’s Reclaimed Water Services

SUBMISSIONS: Municipal Water Leader welcomes manuscript, photography, and art submissions. However, the right to edit or deny publishing submissions is reserved. Submissions are returned only upon request. For more information, please contact our office at (202) 698-0690 or municipal.water.leader@waterstrategies.com. ADVERTISING: Municipal Water Leader accepts one-quarter, half-page, and full-page ads. For more information on rates and placement, please contact Kris Polly at (703) 517-3962 or municipal.water.leader@waterstrategies.com. CIRCULATION: Municipal Water Leader is distributed to irrigation district managers and boards of directors in the 17 western states, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials, members of Congress and committee staff, and advertising sponsors. For address corrections or additions, please contact our managing editor, Joshua Dill, at joshua.dill@waterstrategies.com. Copyright © 2019 Water Strategies LLC. Municipal Water Leader relies on the excellent contributions of a variety of natural resources professionals who provide content for the magazine. However, the views and opinions expressed by these contributors are solely those of the original contributor and do not necessarily represent or reflect the policies or positions of Municipal Water Leader magazine, its editors, or Water Strategies LLC. The acceptance and use of advertisements in Municipal Water Leader do not constitute a representation or warranty by Water Strategies LLC or Municipal Water Leader magazine regarding the products, services, claims, or companies advertised. MunicipalWaterLeader.com

Coming soon in Municipal Water Leader: November/December: Asset Management Do you have a story idea for an upcoming issue? Contact our editor-in-chief, Kris Polly, at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

4 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

MuniWaterLeader

COVER PHOTO:

Amy Dorman, Deputy Director, San Diego Public Utilities Department. Photo courtesy of City of San Diego.

Using Water Twice

By Kris Polly

ater reuse is gaining in acceptance and popularity across the country, and for good reason. Water reclamation and treatment technology can treat and purify wastewater to such a degree that it is often cleaner than water in the local rivers or water bodies it is ultimately dumped into. It is only natural that recycled water should find a use in industrial applications, aquifer recharge, and indirect potable reuse. In our cover story, I interview Amy Dorman, deputy director of San Diego’s Public Utilities Department, about the city’s impressive Pure Water project. Within 20 years, Pure Water will be providing 83 million gallons a day (MGD) of purified water to San Diego; within 5 years, it should be providing 20 MGD. Exciting things are also happening up the coast at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Deven Upadhyay, Metropolitan’s chief operating officer and assistant general manager, tells us about the agency’s newly completed demonstration plant and its ultimate plan to build a full-scale, 150 MGD water reuse plant in cooperation with the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts. You may not know it, but Target Field, the home of the Minneapolis Twins, is a water reclamation facility on a grand scale. Pentair, a large international water solutions company, has installed a rainwater capture system in the stadium that has saved 20 million gallons of water over the last decade, as well as drinking water stations for the Twins’ fans. Joe Mouawad of Eastern Municipal Water District tells us

about even more uses for recycled water. Eastern provides reuse water not just to an artificial wetlands project but to farmland and industrial applications. Jason Dadakis of Orange County Water District tells us about the chemicals known as PFAS compounds and explains how his agency is helping detect their presence in water and ensuring that they are not introduced into groundwater through recharge activities. WateReuse Association Executive Director Patricia Sinicropi gives us a view from Washington with a report on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Reuse Action Plan. Finally, we speak with Art Shapiro of the Howard County, Maryland, Department of Public Works about how his agency provides 5 MGD of reclaimed water to an army post in his area. With so many applications across the country, it is no surprise that water reuse is growing in popularity. There is truly a use that is appropriate for every municipal water provider. I hope that the stories in this issue of Municipal Water Leader jump-start your thought process and get you to start thinking about what application is right for you. M Kris Polly is editor-in-chief of Municipal Water Leader magazine and president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.

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Reverse osmosis trains that form part of the Pure Water system.

San Diego’s Pure Water Program

Amy Dorman: My undergraduate degree was in mechanical engineering, but I have worked in civil engineering my whole career and have focused on water almost entirely. Over the last 10 years, I branched out into water reuse. I have a master of business administration, which has helped me move into supervisor and managerial positions with the City of San Diego. Today, I am a deputy director for the city’s Public Utilities Department. The City has been on the path of pursuing reuse for a few years, starting with early feasibility studies. Now we’re in the final design of the first phase of Pure Water. My position was recently created in anticipation of full-scale operations after we complete construction of the first phase of the Pure Water facilities. I’ll be building up that division.

Kris Polly: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Kris Polly: What were San Diego’s water sources before the introduction of the Pure Water facilities?

6 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE CITY OF SAN DIEGO,

an Diego’s public utilities provide drinking water to around 1.3 million people—and rely primarily on imported water to do so. Recent years of shortage, high prices, and mandatory restrictions have highlighted the vulnerability of this water source and inspired the city to invest in an ambitious, 20-year project to create a local reuse source. The Pure Water project will ultimately provide 83 million gallons a day (MGD) of indirect potable reuse water. In this interview, Amy Dorman, deputy director of San Diego’s Public Utilities Department, speaks with Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the motivations behind Pure Water, how the city is paying for the project, and the importance of public outreach.

ADVERTISEMENT Amy Dorman: San Diego has a population of about 1.3 million people. Our service area covers about 400 square miles. We have three large water treatment plants. We depend on imported water for an average of 85 percent of our annual needs. We primarily import untreated water, because we have treatment capacity to meet our full demand. The system is pretty complex. We have close to 130 pressure zones and lots of pump stations, reservoirs, and regulating stations. We also serve a couple other water agencies, including the City of Del Mar and a retailer called California American Water Company in the southern part of the San Diego region. On the wastewater side, we own and operate the region’s largest wastewater treatment plant, the Point Loma wastewater treatment plant. That facility serves not only the city of San Diego, but about a dozen other agencies in southern San Diego County. The population it serves is close to 2 million. Pure Water is a dual benefit program. San Diego needs to develop more local water and reduce its dependence on imported water. Reusing our highly treated wastewater creates a significant local supply. In total, Pure Water will take 20 years to implement. We’re in the process of designing and building the first phase, which will have a capacity of 30 MGD; ultimately, we want to get up to 83 MGD, which would cover around one-third of the city’s water needs. This will greatly reduce flow to the Point Loma facility. We are under constant pressure, especially from environmental stakeholders, to reduce our ocean discharges from Point Loma. They would like for us and other coastal dischargers to eliminate those discharges entirely. Pure Water doesn’t get us to zero, but it is a significant move in that direction. In the late 1990s, we opened our first water reclamation facilities, so we do also serve purple-pipe customers with nonpotable recycled water.

Discharge Elimination System permit that we have for Point Loma has a waiver attached to it that allows us to continue operating with the current system. Kris Polly: Please tell us about the overall Pure Water program and what it’s going to look like at the end of its 20-year implementation. Amy Dorman: Our existing reclamation plant takes the water to a level where it can be used for nondrinking purposes. That is the starting point for the purification process. We will then take that already-treated water and run it through an advanced, five-step purification process: ozone, reverse osmosis, advanced oxidation, biological filters, and membrane filtration. After those five treatments, the water will be similar to distilled water. It will then be placed in

Kris Polly: What is the motivation for reducing imports? Is it a matter of cost? Amy Dorman: Cost is a big reason. Since the early 2000s, the cost of imported water has tripled. With the recent drought cycle, it’s become clearer not only to the department but also to the general public that water is a scarce resource. During the 2012–2016 drought, the governor actually instituted mandatory cutbacks. This really highlighted the fact that we need to be more sustainable and self-sufficient when it comes to water. The uncertainty and reliability of our imported supply is an issue, too. Kris Polly: Is the water you discharge into the ocean already purified? Amy Dorman: No; Point Loma is an advanced primary treatment facility. We’re not meeting full secondary requirements, though we’re close. The National Pollutant

San Diego has undertaken extensive public outreach efforts to build support for Pure Water, including offering tours of a test-scale facility.

the surface reservoir that serves our largest water treatment plant, so it will get one more round of treatment before it is distributed to customers. That’s to comply with the regulations. The state regulators are adamant that because this water originated as wastewater, we not only have to have all these treatment barriers in place to keep constituents out of the water supply system, we also have to have an environmental barrier, which in this case is the reservoir. The water is diluted in the reservoir and stays there for a period of time that allows us to respond to any occurrences or issues in the upstream treatment process. That’s the basic layout of the facilities. We will replicate that at additional locations in the city in future phases. MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

Amy Dorman: Orange County Water District, based about 100 miles north of us, began operating a similar system in 2008, the Orange County Groundwater Recharge System. It also takes wastewater that’s been treated to the secondary level and then purifies that. Its environmental buffer, instead of being a reservoir, is a huge groundwater basin. It stores its purified water in the groundwater basin and then takes it directly from there to serve its customers. The system began operation in 2008 and has been expanded once. Ultimately, Orange County wants to bring it to 130 MGD. To have another agency going first has been helpful. There are differences between our systems, but there is a lot we can learn from them. Kris Polly: What is the public’s opinion about this program?

Visitors to the Pure Water test facility can taste-test the purified water.

Kris Polly: Is the Pure Water system already operating in part of the city? Amy Dorman: No, the only thing that is currently in operation is the purple-pipe system, which delivers nondrinking recycled water. As for water purification, we are done with the design of the first phase of Pure Water and hope to start construction on the facilities next year and be up and running in the 2024–2025 time frame. Kris Polly: How has the city gone about financing this?

Kris Polly: Was San Diego inspired by any other municipality or any other project when you came up with this idea?

8 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

Kris Polly: How have legal restrictions on indirect and direct potable reuse been changing over the last few years? Amy Dorman: Pure Water is an indirect potable reuse project. In June 2018, the state finalized its regulations for what we’re doing now—augmenting a reservoir with purified

PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE CITY OF SAN DIEGO,

Amy Dorman: We have multiple sources. Last November, we signed an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a loan of over $600 million under their new Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program. We have also pursued revolving funds, which are low-interest loans from the state. The state has allocated $646 million to Pure Water; the next step is to finalize our loan agreement with it. Combined, those two sources provide the financing for almost the entire program. We may also pursue short-term commercial paper.

Amy Dorman: In 2009, we embarked on a feasibility study to see if this concept made sense. Public acceptance was a major hurdle to overcome. We kicked off a citywide outreach and education program in 2010 and did a lot of community and business group presentations and attended community events. We also have a small, test-scale facility that has been open to tours since 2011. For the last 4 years, we’ve been able to allow people to taste the treated water at the test facility. It’s a really popular thing. We’ve been reaching out to as many people in the public of different demographics as we can for the last 10 years. It’s been really beneficial. We piggyback on our local wholesaler’s public surveys, which it conducts every few years. In the early 2000s, the appetite for this concept was low, in the 20 percent range. A few years into our outreach program, the level had tripled. We have a level of support from the public and our elected officials that is unusual for a city project like this. We don’t often come across people anymore who are strongly opposed to it. Most people want to know why we can’t do it sooner and why we have to put the water into a reservoir instead of using it directly. Not only is Pure Water broadly supported, there is a group of people in town who took the initiative to form a Water Reliability Coalition. When we started our feasibility studies, there wasn’t the support from elected officials that we enjoy now. The heads of the San Diego Coast Keeper, which is an environmental group, and San Diego County Taxpayers Association got together and discussed ways to support water reuse. They gathered up to 30 business and environmental organizations that supported Pure Water. They speak on behalf of all our contracts when we bring them forward for the approval of the City Council. Having an independent, nonstaff group of stakeholders who are well respected in the community has been helpful for us.

Pure Water’s test-scale facility is open to public tours.

water. Now there are established regulations that we are able to follow and comply with. Indirect potable reuse has been in practice in the state of California for quite some time now. The Orange County groundwater recharge project I mentioned is also indirect potable reuse. In 2016, the state finalized a feasibility study on direct potable reuse and concluded that it could establish regulatory criteria for direct potable reuse, but that there is also a lot of follow-on research that has to be done first. That research effort is underway now. We may see regulations on direct potable reuse by 2023. No one anticipates that the state will allow what we call pipe to pipe—delivery straight from the purification process into the distribution system— at least for the initial projects. It will probably require that the water go from the purification process to a conventional water treatment facility before distribution. Kris Polly: Tell us about the bigger picture of Southern California water reuse. Why is there so much activity in this sector now? Amy Dorman: I think it has to do with the cost and reliability of imported water. Southern California water providers are heavily dependent on imported water and have recently had to instate mandatory conservation. That has highlighted the need to try to establish local sources of water in earnest. Through the years, everyone’s been doing conservation, and

we’ve stepped it up by providing nonpotable recycled water, but even with all that, we had to implement mandatory conservation during recent droughts. As a result, a lot of the agencies in this area, including Monterey, the Los Angeles Sanitation Districts, and the City of Los Angeles, are pursuing water reuse. There’s a need for it, the technology has been proven, and the general public is in favor. Kris Polly: What advice would you have for other municipalities that are considering a project like this? Amy Dorman: To focus on their customers, educate their customers, and make sure that there’s transparency and that they’re aware of what’s involved. For us, having a test facility that customers could visit to see the equipment in operation and to taste the water was really helpful for increasing awareness and acceptance of the product. The technology is well proven, but public acceptance differs from community to community and requires early focus. M Amy Dorman is deputy director of San Diego’s Public Utilities Department. For more info about San Diego’s Pure Water program, visit www.purewatersd.org.

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Demonstrating the Feasibility of Large-Scale Reuse in Southern California

Reverse osmosis trains at Metropolitan’s demonstration facility.

12 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Deven Upadhyay: My background is actually in economics. I started in the water industry in 1995, working in Metropolitan’s planning group, which was focused on looking far into the future and projecting what demand might look like and what new supply programs would be needed. I worked in this group on long-term planning, facilities planning, and resource planning for about 10 years. At that point, I left Metropolitan to work for the Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC) on water policy issues. MWDOC is one of Metropolitan’s larger customer agencies. It serves much of Orange County as a water wholesaler. At the time, one of MWDOC’s directors, Wes Bannister, had just been elected as Metropolitan’s chair of the board. I had the opportunity to work with him. It was a cool time to be working on water policy. A few years later, the position of manager of budget rates and financial planning opened up at Metropolitan. I ended up moving back to Metropolitan to take that position, and a few years

PHOTOS COURTESY OF METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

he Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a major water wholesaler that serves 26 member agencies across 6 heavily populated counties. Most of its water is imported from the Colorado River and Northern California, but increasing drought and demand have highlighted the limitations of these sources. For decades, Metropolitan has encouraged and incentivized its member agencies to develop local water supplies. Now, it is following suit, embarking on the development of a major recycled water project for the region, a drought-proof supply that could ultimately produce 150 million gallons a day (MGD) of recycled wastewater for groundwater augmentation, industrial uses and, eventually, direct potable reuse through raw water augmentation. The current step in this plan is the opening of a demonstration plant that will test the water reclamation procedures that the district would implement on a larger scale with a full-scale facility if the project is approved by Metropolitan’s board of directors. In this interview, Deven Upadhyay, Metropolitan’s chief operating officer and assistant general manager, speaks with Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the district’s demonstration plant and its plans for the future.

ADVERTISEMENT later, I became the manager of water resources. About a year and a half ago, I became the chief operating officer and assistant general manager. Joshua Dill: Would you give us an overview of Metropolitan and its services? Deven Upadhyay: We are a large water wholesaler providing services to 26 member agencies. Metropolitan was formed and operates as a voluntary cooperative of its member agencies. In an average year, we provide about half the water that is used in urban Southern California. Our service area spans from Ventura County in the north to the Mexican border in the south, covering parts of Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties. In that service area, there are roughly 19 million people. We import water supplies through a system that we built and own and operate that brings water from the Colorado River. We also are the largest participant in the State Water Project, which the State of California built in the 1960s. We deliver that imported water to our member agencies, which include 13 cities, a number of water districts, and one county water authority. They and their own member agencies deliver that water, sometimes combined with local supplies, to residents and businesses throughout Southern California. We’ve got five drinking water treatment plants, the largest of which is the second-largest treatment plant in the United States. To give you a sense of our infrastructure’s scale, the replacement costs for that infrastructure would be about $22 billion. Our normal annual budget is about $1.7 billion. We have about 1,800 employees.

Joshua Dill: Would you tell us about the motivation behind developing your new recycled water demonstration plant? Deven Upadhyay: Originally, Metropolitan was focused on developing and managing imported supplies. However, over time, our board shifted Metropolitan’s focus to becoming a leader in regional planning for water in Southern California. In this role, Metropolitan has adopted demandmanagement policies focusing on developing new local supplies and reducing consumption. In combination with imported supplies, these policies help ensure the region has a reliable water supply. In fact, the state legislature directed Metropolitan to increase conservation and local resource projects with SB60, which was signed into law in 1999. Over the decades, we started finding ways to encourage Southern California to reduce per-capita water use through conservation programs. We offered rebates to incentivize consumers throughout the region to get new, more efficient toilets and low-flow showerheads or to replace their grass with drought-tolerant landscaping. We built a conservation outreach platform at bewaterwise.com. We did something similar to promote local supply development in the 1980s with our Local Resources Program. We established financial incentives and struck agreements with our customer agencies to encourage the development of recycled water plants and groundwater treatment plants to treat contaminated groundwater. These facilities typically cost more than our imported water, so we help make them more financially feasible with incentives. Now we’re looking to take another major step toward developing recycled water for this region, in partnership with the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts (LACSD).

Metropolitan's demonstration facility, viewed from above.

MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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A UV treatment system at Metropolitan’s demonstration facility.

14 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

Joshua Dill: When you do raw water augmentation, are you required to put the reuse water in an environmental buffer like a reservoir? Deven Upadhyay: That will depend on the feedback we get as regulations develop over the next 3½ years. In general, raw water augmentation would remove the environmental buffer that is required in the different forms of indirect potable reuse, such as groundwater augmentation and reservoir augmentation. There is potential for some storage buffer to be part of a raw water augmentation process, such as a small reservoir. We also anticipate additional treatment and enhanced monitoring to be required. When you look at the design for this program, most of the core treatment will happen at a site that is jointly located with the LACSD, the Joint Water Pollution Control Facility in the city of Carson, California, where the wastewater is treated before it is delivered. That’s where the demonstration plant is now and that’s where the full-scale facility will be. The purified water will then move into a backbone distribution system that would deliver water for industrial demands, groundwater augmentation needs, and potential raw water augmentation. The raw water augmentation piece will happen at the end of the system after these other deliveries are made. We need to define the additional treatment that is needed before raw water augmentation water goes into our conventional treatment facilities. We also need to identify whether that additional treatment should be done at the full-scale facility in Carson or at a satellite facility closer to our treatment plants. The advantage of a satellite treatment plant located next to a conventional treatment facility is that you are probably treating a lower flow volume, which means that

PHOTOS COURTESY OF METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

The full-scale plant that we’re talking about as part of this partnership would produce 150 MGD of reuse water and would be the largest facility of its kind in the United States. Because of that size and scale, we’re considering a different approach for this program: actually building, owning, and operating that facility ourselves as opposed to incentivizing another agency to do it. The project’s footprint extends far beyond the boundaries of any one of our member agencies, or even two together, and the project will improve reliability for all member agencies throughout the region, so it makes sense for a regional agency like Metropolitan to take it on. Another reason this approach makes sense is that we’re considering taking this water into our existing delivery systems through a process known as raw water augmentation. A portion of the purified recycled water would be put upstream of one, and potentially two, of our drinking water treatment facilities, treated again through traditional treatment methods, and then distributed via our treated water distribution system. The system would also deliver treated water to groundwater basins in Southern California for groundwater augmentation, as well as to some industrial users. Our full-scale infrastructure will involve two major components: an advanced water treatment facility and a distribution system. It will involve about 60 miles of conveyance and distribution pipelines. If our board decides to move forward with the full-scale project, we anticipate that it will take 11 years from the authorization of the environmental work to the completion of the fullscale facilities. There are opportunities to accelerate the development of a portion of the project that could allow water to be produced and used by industrial users or groundwater basins in as few as 7 years. Our demonstration facility is one of the early steps in this program. We entered into a formal partnership in 2015 with LACSD to develop an advanced water treatment demonstration facility, and we recently completed its

construction. We are beginning the operations and testing phase in early September 2019 under a testing plan that has been approved by the State Water Resources Control Board. The facility will produce about 500,000 gallons a day and gives us the ability to test the use of an innovative treatment sequence that begins with membrane bioreactors, followed by reverse osmosis, UV treatment, and advanced oxidation. This process is a unique adaptation of existing technology in that it is testing the use of membrane bioreactors as a pretreatment for reverse osmosis. That process could significantly improve efficiencies in water recycling. We are testing its ability to meet groundwater augmentation regulations as well as industrial water requirements. In a second phase of this project, we’ll be exploring the potential for raw water augmentation. There will likely be additional treatment processes and controls required, but we don’t yet know what those additional requirements will be. The state has initiated development of raw water augmentation regulations and is required to develop these regulations by the end of 2023. Future testing at Metropolitan’s demonstration facility may provide an opportunity to support the state in its regulatory development.

ADVERTISEMENT the size of the additional treatment processes for raw water augmentation might be smaller and, therefore, cheaper. The City of Los Angeles is also considering a large-scale recycling plant at its own Hyperion wastewater facility. We’ve signed a letter of intent with the city to develop a plan to coordinate the potential interconnection of the city’s project with the backbone system of Metropolitan’s project, so that some of the city’s purified wastewater could be moved through it up to the raw water augmentation scheme we are designing for our own treatment plants. Joshua Dill: What would constitute success for the demonstration facility? Deven Upadhyay: The State Board has approved a 15-month testing plan for a tertiary membrane bioreactor (MBR) process. That means we are taking effluent from the wastewater facility that has been treated to a secondary level and bringing it into our demonstration plant to continue the treatment process with the steps I mentioned above, starting with MBR. We are seeking recognition from the State Board that our treatment process is able to purify the water and meet all applicable regulations. If that is successful, we will move on to a second testing plan to test the viability of a secondary MBR process. That involves taking effluent from the wastewater facility that has been treated to a primary level and moving it into the demonstration plant. There may be some cost efficiencies that can be realized through this treatment approach. Success, for us, would be moving through that first testing plan and starting a second testing plan. We don’t intend to stop there. We eventually want to use this demonstration facility to develop a testing plan for raw water augmentation. We think we’re going to be getting value out of this demonstration facility for quite some time leading up to decisions on the full-scale facility, and we think we can do that in parallel with environmental work on the full-scale facility. While all of this is happening, we will be conducting tours at our demonstration facility to inform and educate a variety of stakeholders on the purification process employed and the overall program. Joshua Dill: Would you talk about the broader landscape of water reuse in Southern California and how your projected full-scale facility fits into it? Deven Upadhyay: We’ve learned a lot from the people who have done a ton of work on similar projects before us. The

Water Replenishment District of Southern California, the West Basin Municipal Water District, and the Orange County Water District have paved the way using recycled water for seawater barriers and groundwater replenishment. That is informing the approach that we’re using with this facility. We’ve also had a lot of discussion and information sharing with the folks down at the City of San Diego, which is pursuing a reservoir augmentation project through their Pure Water project. And, as I mentioned, we’ve signed a letter of intent with the City of Los Angeles, allowing for coordination between our two large-scale recycling projects.

A facility at Metropolitan’s demonstration facility.

Looking at water reuse and recycling in Southern California, what we’re seeing is a continued evolution from recycled water efforts focused on external irrigation and industrial use to indirect potable reuse through seawater barriers, groundwater augmentation, and reservoir augmentation. Our vision is to move further in that direction by investigating raw water augmentation. We see this as a natural progression. I think this is a turning point within the state. Water agencies are seizing opportunities to purify wastewater to develop drought-proof supplies. There’s also a fair amount of public support for this. Recycled water is an integral part of a portfolio, together with stormwater capture, imported supplies, local water supply development, and conservation efforts. All these resources put together can provide a robust and reliable portfolio for Southern California. M Deven Upadhyay is chief operating officer and assistant general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. He can be contacted at dupadhyay@mwdh2o.com. MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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Pentair: Water Reuse From Stadiums to Factories to Private Homes

16 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Phil Rolchigo: I received a PhD in chemical engineering in 1988 and have been in the water treatment space ever since. I helped found a startup company and developed some advanced technologies for wastewater treatment that we applied to industrial applications. We sold that company to a company called Osmonics, one of the pioneers in the use of membrane technology to treat drinking and industrial water, where I became the chief executive officer. I worked with that company for a number of years, then sold it to General Electric (GE). That was a time when multinationals became

PHOTO COURTESY OF PENTAIR.

entair, a global company with its main U.S. office in Minneapolis, has recently refocused its efforts squarely on the water sector. The company’s water technology has broad applications in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors. Pentair also helped the Minnesota Twins achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for their new baseball stadium with an innovative, facility-scale rainwater capture and reuse installation as well as purified drinking water stations. In this interview, Phil Rolchigo, Pentair’s chief technology officer, speaks with Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about Pentair’s history, its project at Target Field, and its vision for the future.

ADVERTISEMENT reinvented itself several times, with the most recent transition being the separation of our electrical businesses, which is now a company called nVent. We have about $3 billion in revenue, approximately 110 locations in 30 different countries, and 10,000 employees. Our revenue comes from three segments. One is our aquatic systems business, which focuses on residential and commercial pool technologies. The second segment is our flow technologies business, which includes pumps and controls for everything from residential applications, like sump pumps in homes or off-grid drinking water well pumps, to commercial and municipal applications for water transport and wastewater disposal. Our third segment is what we call our filtration solutions business. This group develops new technologies to treat water and wastewater for residential, commercial, industrial, and food and beverage applications. I would say that nearly 80 percent of Pentair’s $3 billion revenue is derived from the residential and commercial markets and the other approximately 20 percent is derived from the industrial and municipal markets. Our brand promise is to deliver smart, sustainable water solutions for life. Since Pentair’s transition to a pure-play water company, our strategy and mission have become much more clearly focused. It is an exciting journey.

Under this baseball diamond is a sophisticated rainwater-capture system developed by Pentair.

extremely interested in water, and GE made significant investments in building its own water platform. After working with GE for about 4 years, I had the opportunity to come over to Pentair. I really admired Pentair’s vision when it came to water, and joined to lead technology for its water group. At that time, it was a multi-industrial company focused on electrical products and water technology. Over the course of the 12 years that I’ve been with Pentair, it has grown and transitioned a

number of times, and about a year ago it separated its electrical business to become a pure-play water company. At that time, I became the company’s chief technology officer. Joshua Dill: Would you give a basic overview of Pentair as a company? Phil Rolchigo: Pentair was founded in 1966. At the time, the aim was to create weather balloons to monitor weather. Since then, the company has

Joshua Dill: Would you tell me about Pentair’s facilities in the Minnesota Twins’ stadium? Phil Rolchigo: Back when the Twins were going to be opening Target Field, they had the vision of having the stadium meet the LEED Silver standard. Considering the different ways to achieve that certification, they realized that water use presented a huge opportunity. We put our creativity to work to find a way to improve the stadium’s water footprint and reduce its water consumption. When we looked at the way they were collecting and managing the rainwater, we saw MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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Pentair's water purification installation at Target Field.

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of the stadium. They have now achieved LEED Gold certification for operations and maintenance. In 2019, they also achieved LEED Gold certification for leadership in energy and environmental design. In this past year, we worked with them to install Pentair filtration technology in the drinking water systems throughout their stadium. The Twins encourage their fans to bring reusable water bottles into the stadium and drink filtered water instead of buying bottled water, thus reducing plastic waste. Joshua Dill: Has the stadium project introduced more people to your products and services? Phil Rolchigo: We’ve had tremendous response via social media. People really appreciate the effort. Nearly 80 percent of what we do is in the residential and commercial markets, where there is a tremendous opportunity to use our technology to minimize the bottled water footprint. Our facilities are water bottle free. We have our own water treatment technologies in our facilities so that, whether they’re in Mexico, China, or here in Minneapolis, our employees are getting high-quality and great-tasting water from Pentair technology. Joshua Dill: Have you built any other similar projects? Phil Rolchigo: Rainwater capture and recycling is still in its infancy. When we developed the system at the stadium 10 years ago, we were ahead of the curve. When new commercial buildings are being designed, many times no one

PHOTOS COURTESY OF PENTAIR.

that water was draining through the field, running through a conduit into a cistern that runs along the warning track on the field, and then flowing through a series of weirs into the Mississippi River. We realized that we could capture that water, process it, purify it, and then reuse it. Designing that system was a unique challenge. After performing a water balance on the cistern, we realized we could collect about 2 million gallons of water a year. We designed a system with multiple levels of filtration. Our proprietary pretreatment technology removes the suspended solids. This is followed by our proprietary ultrafiltration technology, which filters the water down to a level of .01 microns, removing a fair amount of high-molecularweight organic matter and purifying the water to eliminate biopathogens such as bacteria and viruses. Then we disinfect the water with chlorine and ultraviolet light and store it in a holding tank. At that point, a pump distribution network delivers that water to points in the stadium, where it is typically used to wash down the seating bowl. After it is used to clean the stadium, it drains back to the municipal wastewater treatment plant. We’ve been doing this for about 10 years, and we’ve captured and reused about 20 million gallons of rainwater in total. Not only did we reduce the municipal water footprint by 20 million gallons over this period, but maybe even more importantly, we eliminated 20 million gallons of untreated water from flowing into and contaminating the Mississippi River. It’s been a great partnership, and we really appreciate the Twins’ vision of constantly improving the sustainability

ADVERTISEMENT is even thinking about these applications. There’s still a lot of work to be done to incentivize and raise awareness of the importance of rainwater capture and reuse systems. Where we are finding tremendous traction is in industrial reuse applications. Food and beverage plants in particular generate a tremendous amount of organic waste in their wastewater. We’ve been finding that by applying a combination of membrane technology and biological treatment and, increasingly, anaerobic biological treatment, we’re able to take what is considered waste and use it as a feed stock to generate energy and clean water. It is recycled and reused onsite. You can draw a clear economic and environmental value proposition around those applications. When it comes to commercial and rainwater reuse applications, it’s harder to draw the economic value proposition, but you can clearly draw the environmental and social value propositions around them.

our drinking water treatment plants, and improve our wastewater treatment plants. With that in mind, our Pentair technologies can assist homeowners in taking control of their water quality and help ensure that they are getting great-quality and great-tasting water right at the point of entry in their homes or at the point of use in the sink. We’re continually developing better and more-effective technology to do that. We’re also really excited about opportunities in the commercial sector. Fit-for-purpose water is an exciting, niche application that makes a lot of sense—developing water with the right composition to make great-tasting coffee, great pizza dough, or great bagels. Also, in each of the markets that we serve, we are trying to make our products smart by implementing Internet-of-thingsenabled, real-time analysis of how they’re performing. This is an area in which we’re making significant investments. M

Joshua Dill: Would you tell us about your vision for the future?

Phil Rolchigo is chief technology officer of Pentair. For more information, visit pentair.com.

Phil Rolchigo: More and more, we’re finding that homeowners want to take control of their own destinies and assume accountability for their water. There is significant infrastructure that needs to be put in place in the United States to rebuild our piping networks, upgrade

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How Eastern Provides Recycled Water to Wetlands, Farms, Power Plants, and More

EMWD’s San Jacinto Valley Regional Water Reclamation Facility.

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Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and your role in EMWD’s water reuse programs. Joe Mouawad: I serve as the assistant general manager of Planning, Engineering and Construction at EMWD. We are a retail and wholesale water agency serving a region spanning 555 square miles in western Riverside County. We provide water, wastewater, and recycled water services to a population of more than 825,000 people. Our service area includes seven cities as well as large portions of unincorporated Riverside County. One distinctive feature of this area is that it is only 38 percent built out. So there is

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EMWD.

astern Municipal Water District (EMWD) provides water, wastewater, and recycled water service to more than 825,000 people in Riverside County, California. Since the 1960s, the district has been supplementing its largely imported water supply by developing wastewater reclamation and recycling projects. Currently, recycled water represents about 34 percent of its portfolio and is delivered to agricultural, industrial, institutional, and environmental users. In this interview, Joe Mouawad, assistant general manager of EMWD, speaks with Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about how EMWD’s recycled water is benefiting ratepayers and the local environment as a whole.

ADVERTISEMENT a significant amount of growth yet to occur. We’re currently about 50 percent reliant on imported water supplies; the balance is provided from local resources, including recycled water. Recycled water currently represents approximately 34 percent of our water supply portfolio. Our primary recycled water customer is the agricultural community. It represents about 60 to 65 percent of our recycled water sales. Recycled water is also used for municipal and irrigation purposes in parks, schools, and golf courses; for industrial uses, including a power plant; and for environmental uses, including a local wildlife area. EMWD has invested significantly over the last two decades in the recycled water system. It is a pressurized system with elevated and seasonal storage as well as extensive transmission pipelines and pump stations to deliver recycled water to a diversified portfolio of customers.

Metropolitan Water District of Southern California through its local resources program, which provides financial incentives to advance local resources, including recycled water. EMWD has also received funding from the California State Water Resources Control Board. Joshua Dill: What is the total amount of recycled water that you provide?

of the wetlands was to remove nutrients from the secondary effluent produced at the San Jacinto facility and to provide support for habitat. It also provided an opportunity for us to undertake educational programs and research. Since that time, the San Jacinto facility has been expanded and upgraded to produce tertiary treated water, which is used for the wetlands.

Joshua Dill: How far back does your recycled water program go? Joe Mouawad: Our wastewater treatment and reclamation system started back in the 1960s. Initially, we partnered with the agricultural community to dispose of the effluent from our reclamation facilities. That partnership has evolved over the decades. We currently operate four regional water reclamation facilities that produce tertiary treated water. Through the investments we have made in the system, our recycled water system has been transformed from a disposal system to a pressurized storage and distribution system. That has allowed us to expand our services from agricultural to other municipal and irrigation uses. Over the last 20 years, EMWD has invested approximately $200 million in infrastructure facilities, including regional seasonal storage, pump stations, pipelines, and elevated tanks. We have successfully secured external grant funding to help make those investments. The Bureau of Reclamation has been a key partner in the expansion of our recycled water system. We’ve also received significant support from the

A farmer irrigates his fields with recycled water.

Joe Mouawad: Our reclamation facilities currently produce approximately 44 million gallons per day of tertiary treated water. EMWD has the strategic goal of reusing 100 percent of all treated wastewater, and of the past 6 years, there have only been 2 years during which we had to discharge recycled water due to exceptionally wet winter seasons. This year was one of those exceptions: We filled up all our regional storage, about 7,500 acre-feet in all, and had to discharge approximately 6,000 acre-feet of recycled water. Joshua Dill: Would you tell us about the wetlands project that EMWD has undertaken? Joe Mouawad: The wetlands is a 50-acre site with approximately 26 acres of storage ponds that were constructed in 1994 with the assistance of a $7 million grant from Reclamation. It is adjacent to our San Jacinto Valley Regional Reclamation Facility. The initial purpose

Today, we use the wetlands strictly for educational purposes. We have an educational center adjacent to the wetlands where we host a number of EMWD’s K–12 educational programs. This provides our educational staff the opportunity to highlight the water recycling process. We also have monthly bird walks during the height of birdwatching season to demonstrate the environmental benefits of the habitats that the wetlands provide. Joshua Dill: What nutrients can wetlands remove from water? Joe Mouawad: The water that had previously been provided to the wetlands was secondary treated water, which still had some residual nitrogen. The vegetation in the wetlands removed nitrogen from the secondary effluent. Joshua Dill: How is recycled water used for agriculture? MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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EMWD provides recycled water to wetlands.

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other partners, the level of service improved dramatically for all our customers, including our agricultural customers. Joshua Dill: What industrial uses is the recycled water put to? Joe Mouawad: Not far from EMWD headquarters is a power plant called the Inland Empire Energy Center. In 2007, we entered into an agreement to provide the facility with recycled water for its cooling towers. It uses that recycled water for multiple cycles before discharging it to our brine collection system. Joshua Dill: What kind of requirements for water quality to do the industrial cooling plants have? Joe Mouawad: The power plant requires disinfected, tertiary treated water. EMWD delivers tertiary treated water that is disinfected as part of the treatment process. All of EMWD’s recycled water is treated to the same quality. Joshua Dill: Is recycled water put to any other uses that we haven’t covered? Joe Mouawad: In addition to the wetlands, we support a significant wildlife area, the San Jacinto Wildlife Area, which is operated and maintained by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. That facility currently uses about 4,300 acre-feet of recycled water per year. The partnership was established in

PHOTOS COURTESY OF EMWD.

Joe Mouawad: The agricultural community has been a key partner for EMWD over the last several decades. We currently sell or provide approximately 65 percent of our recycled water to agricultural customers. Within EMWD’s service area, recycled water is used to irrigate approximately 10,800 acres of farmland. In 2018, we provided 22,000 acre-feet of recycled water to agricultural customers. Our rate structure incentivizes the agricultural community to use recycled water in lieu of pumping from our precious groundwater supply. Some customers are able to store water onsite, while others are on-demand and need to peak off our system. In the winter, when our demands are typically lower, we have a lower rate for the agricultural community; we have worked with agricultural users so that their planting season coincides with the availability of recycled water in the winter. The main challenge that we have overcome over the last two decades was maintaining a high level of service to our agricultural customers. Before we made additional investments in infrastructure, there were times when we were not able to maintain sufficient pressure or supply of recycled water. We had to significantly expand our ability to store water on a seasonal basis—meaning storing water during the winter, when demands are low, so that we can deliver it to our customers in the summer—with pump stations, pipelines, and elevated storage tanks, similar to those in a portable water system. Once we made those system improvements, with the assistance of Reclamation, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and

A crane calls EMWD’s wetlands home.

1989, when we made our first delivery. There are private duck clubs within the wildlife area that receive a significant amount of recycled water for their operations. We also provide recycled water to a significant number of schools and parks, including a partnership with another special district, the Valley-Wide Recreation and Park District. Finally, we have partnered with the cities in our area to convert irrigated medians and public rights of way to recycled water and to remove turf grass altogether in those areas to protect our precious water supplies and showcase water efficient landscapes. EMWD has also advanced an accelerated retrofit program for recycled water over the last several years that allows entities like schools and parks to retrofit their onsite potable water landscape irrigation systems to recycled water without extensive upfront costs. Through this program, EMWD’s board of directors authorized staff to assist customers in the design and permitting of the retrofit. We also cover the cost of those retrofits and are reimbursed for those costs over a period of time through a special rate that is 75 percent of the potable water rate. That is higher than our typical recycled water rates, but still provides a 25 percent discount to the customer that completes the retrofit to recycled water. Customers see an immediate reduction in their water rates, and the retrofit cost is reimbursed to the district over a set period of time. It’s a win for everyone. In phase 1 of this program, we converted 460 acre-feet per year from potable to recycled water. We are now finishing phase 2 of that program. At the upcoming WateReuse conference, EMWD is being recognized for the success of our accelerated retrofit program.

EMWD's recycled water is provided to water athletic fields.

Joshua Dill: What advice would you have to other municipal water districts that are considering implementing recycled water programs? Joe Mouawad: A key component is the vision of the board of directors. Without that vision and without the board fully supporting all the different initiatives that we described, we would never have been able to succeed. Public outreach and education is also key for the success of a recycled water program. Another recommendation would be to have a very aggressive grants and loans effort. Joshua Dill: What is your vision for the future? Joe Mouawad: As we continue to grow as an agency, we’re going to have more available recycled water, and we are already thinking ahead about the best use for it. Therefore, EMWD is advancing a purified water replenishment program in which we would take advanced-treated recycled water and use it to recharge our groundwater basin. M Joe Mouawad is assistant general manager of planning, engineering, and construction for EMWD. For more information, please visit www.emwd.org.

MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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Aqueous film-forming foam, which is used in military applications to put out fires, releases PFAS compounds into the environment.

How OCWD Is Addressing PFAS Contamination

at OCWD is executive director of water quality technical resources. I work with our analytical laboratory, water quality monitoring programs, regulatory compliance, and research and development. Joshua Dill: Would you give us an overview of OCWD?

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.

Jason Dadakis: OCWD is what’s known in California as an independent special district. It was created by the state legislature in the 1930s and charged with the role of managing the local groundwater basin. We are the groundwater basin manager for north and central Orange County. There are 2.5 million people in our service area, and the groundwater basin currently provides 77 percent of the water supply. Our major stakeholders are the 19 retail water agencies that have wells that pump from the basin and serve water to residential and industrial customers.

Jason Dadakis: I’m a hydrogeologist by training, and I have worked for OCWD for about 15 years. My current title here

Joshua Dill: What are PFAS chemicals and where do they come from?

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PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHELLE RASMUSSON.

er- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a chemical family known as PFAS, were developed in the 1930s and 1940s and are now used in a wide variety of waterproof and oilproof containers, clothes, and implements, as well as firefighting foam. However, PFAS compounds’ ubiquity means that they have also made their way into water supplies that are used for human consumption, potentially causing serious health consequences. Orange County Water District (OCWD) is one groundwater management agency that is working with federal, state, and local agencies to test, identify, and monitor PFAS. In this interview, Jason Dadakis, OCWD’s executive director of water quality technical resources, speaks with Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the occurrence and risks of PFAS and what OCWD is doing to combat them.

ADVERTISEMENT Jason Dadakis: PFAS is a family of thousands of different chemicals that were developed for a wide range of industrial and commercial uses beginning in the 1930s and 1940s. Over time, the family has expanded as certain compounds have been phased out for a variety of reasons and new ones are brought to market.

tend to bioaccumulate. The two most studied compounds of the family are perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonate (PFOS), both of which have been phased out in the United States. They tend to persist and bioaccumulate. Both compounds, I believe, have been found to have half-lives in humans of about 3–5 years.

Joshua Dill: What kind of products are they found in?

Joshua Dill: Are PFAS chemicals more prevalent in certain regions as opposed to others?

Jason Dadakis: PFAS compounds impart distinctive chemical properties of water, oil, and stain resistance. They are widely used in carpets that have been treated to protect against stains, food wrappers that are impermeable to grease, pans that have been coated with Teflon and other coatings, Goretex jackets, and other waterproof items. Another major user of PFAS is the military, particularly for aircraft operations. Aqueous film-forming foam, or AFFF, which uses PFAS compounds, was developed to put out jet fuel fires quickly and effectively. This foam is widely used at military facilities all over the United States and the world, especially at airfields. It has now been found that those activities release these chemicals into the environment. Joshua Dill: How do PFAS compounds get into water that people might end up drinking? Do they leach out of products in landfills? Jason Dadakis: The environmental fate and transport of these contaminants is still an emerging field of research. PFAS compounds are ubiquitous in the environment because of their widespread usage in a range of consumer products. The frequent use of these chemicals at military facilities in training activities and demonstrations is one source. Typically, after these training activities, many of these foams are simply released or washed into the environment and the soil. That’s one way they’ve been found to get into the groundwater. Another source is manufacturing facilities themselves, both through discharges of industrial wastewater and atmospheric deposition via stack emissions. Occurrence at landfills is related to PFAS compounds’ widespread use in consumer products that are then disposed of in landfills. We are also learning more about the presence of the compounds in conventionally treated municipal wastewater as well. Joshua Dill: How common are these chemicals in water? Jason Dadakis: With the improved analytical technology that has emerged over the last decade or so, these compounds are being found in lots of places. Through federal government programs like the National Institute of Health’s biomonitoring program, which has been looking for these compounds in human blood serum across the country for almost 20 years, PFAS have been found in 98–99 percent of the U.S. population. The compounds are persistent and

Jason Dadakis: The initial places where they were discovered were communities with major manufacturing facilities and military facilities. One thing that’s driven the discovery of these compounds is that, during 2013–2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had its third Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule (UCMR3) program that required medium- to large-size drinking water systems to test for PFAS compounds. That revealed a more widespread occurrence of these compounds than had been expected in areas of the country that had not yet been investigated. That and certain follow-up investigations by individual states have revealed the widespread presence of these compounds in various environmental mediums, including soil, air, and water. Joshua Dill: What are the possible dangers to human health posed by these chemicals? Jason Dadakis: We know the most about PFOA and PFOS, although I would say the understanding is still evolving on those as well. There’s evidence of human health effects even at fairly low concentrations, in the parts-per-trillion level, especially when coupled with long-term exposure. The fact that PFAS compounds, especially PFOA and PFOS, do tend to stick around the human body and are not eliminated quickly is a factor. Our understanding of these effects has been driven by whole-animal studies on the toxicology side, looking at the effects on rodents and other animals. There have also been some human epidemiological studies that have traced certain outcomes, especially in places where there’s documented human workplace exposures. These two compounds tend to concentrate in the kidneys, and a probable link with kidney cancer has been documented, along with ulcerative colitis and thyroid diseases. There are also some issues with neonatal or prenatal exposures with certain outcomes, like immunotoxicity leading to things like vaccinations not being effective in children that have been exposed to PFOA and PFOS. Joshua Dill: When did OCWD become aware of the issue with PFAS and decide to do something about it? Jason Dadakis: The UCMR3 program first put it on our radar screen. Our lab is one of three public agency labs in MUNICIPALWATERLEADER.COM

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ADVERTISEMENT the nation to provide a full UCRM3 program. OCWD laboratory and water quality staff conducted the unregulated contaminant monitoring on behalf of the major retail water agencies in our groundwater basin, and PFAS was one of the chemical families that was included. That gave us an initial snapshot of the occurrence of these compounds in our groundwater basin. Joshua Dill: How is the district monitoring and treating its water now?

its own similar nonenforceable advisories for PFOA and PFOS. The current California interim response level and the EPA lifetime health advisory carry similar advisory recommendations that water with a combined concentration of PFOA and PFOS greater than 70 parts per trillion not be served to the public. Moving forward, though, and aware that those standards may be changing and becoming more strict, both OCWD and the retail agencies are embarking on a number of efforts to assess the feasibility of the treatment of the groundwater supply, including pilot testing studies to establish some capital operating costs for potential future treatment facilities and planning studies. Granular activated carbon is the best available technology for PFOA and PFOS removal from drinking water. Ion exchange is also emerging as a viable alternative, and significant research is being conducted to develop improved sorbents that are effective across the range of PFAS compounds. Joshua Dill: So the reverse osmosis process OCWD was already using to treat its water is effective in removing some of these compounds?

Some water-resistant fabrics are manufactured with PFAS compounds.

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Joshua Dill: What advice do you have for other municipal water suppliers about detecting and treating water that might contain PFAS? Jason Dadakis: The best thing to do is to arm yourself with information. Learn about the properties of the compounds and try to keep up with the public health studies. Be as proactive as you can in monitoring and understanding the occurrence of these compounds in your water supplies. That can allow utilities to lead the dialogue in their communities about PFAS occurrence and about what is known and what is still unknown about these compounds on the public health side. This will lay a foundation to discuss potential expenses that may be reflected in customer rates. Starting that dialogue early is a proactive way to approach the issue. M Jason Dadakis is executive director of water quality technical resources at the Orange County Water District. He can be contacted at jdadakis@ocwd.com.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BROCKEN INAGLORY.

Jason Dadakis: The district is not a retail agency; we don’t serve finished drinking water to anyone. You can think of us as the groundwater wholesaler in the area. Where we do get directly involved in the treatment of these compounds is in advanced water treatment related to recycled water. The district operates the largest indirect potable reuse facility in the world, known as the Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS). It’s a 100 million gallon-per-day facility that takes secondary treated wastewater effluent that would normally be discharged into the Pacific Ocean, purifies it with an advanced treatment process, and then uses it for groundwater replenishment. Knowing that PFAS compounds can occur in conventionally treated wastewater, we made sure to test our advanced treatment recycled water to make sure that we were not introducing them into the groundwater basin through our GWRS recharge activities. That testing, which is going to be going on for a number of years, has verified that our advanced treatment process, which is centered on reverse osmosis, is an effective barrier for PFAS compounds. A handful of the retailers that are pumping groundwater had certain wells that tested at above the levels established by the 2016 EPA lifetime health advisory for PFOA and PFOS. As soon as they became aware of that in 2016, those wells were immediately shut down and taken out of service. Since that time, the State of California has established

Jason Dadakis: That’s correct. We have been testing our GWRS product water with the current EPA method for PFAS, Method 537 Revision 1.1, and the targeted PFAS compounds have consistently been nondetect. That makes sense, given the properties of PFAS compounds. Their molecular size and ionic charge lend themselves to good removal by reverse osmosis.

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Water Sector Supports Development of National Water Reuse Action Plan

The WateReuse Association held an expert convening with its partner organizations in Los Angeles in April 2019 to develop ideas for the WRAP.

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34th Annual WateReuse Symposium, hosted by the WateReuse Association in San Diego on September 8â&#x20AC;&#x201C;11, 2019. In this interview, WateReuse Association Executive Director Patricia Sinicropi speaks with Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the importance of the WRAP, how the water sector collaborated to develop recommendations, and why interest in water recycling is skyrocketing nationally. Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position. Patricia Sinicropi: I have been an advocate for water-related policy issues in Washington, DC, for more than two decades. Prior to joining the WateReuse Association, I served as senior legislative director for the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), overseeing and directing NACWAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s legislative advocacy program, including policy analysis and advocacy on federal water policy related to infrastructure funding and financing, climate and energy, integrated planning, ratepayer affordability, and agriculture. I

PHOTO COURTESY OF WATEREUSE ASSOCIATION.

he U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced on February 27, 2019, that it would facilitate the development of a national Water Reuse Action Plan (WRAP) to serve as a catalyst to enhance the consideration of water reuse as a tool in integrated water resources management nationally. EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Dave Ross made the announcement during a water reuse summit hosted by Suez and framed the plan as a collaborative effort between the water sector and federal agencies. The WateReuse Association, a trade association of utilities and businesses involved with water recycling, immediately began the process of developing recommendations for the WRAP. WateReuse engaged its membership and facilitated a multimonth collaborative process to develop water sector recommendations jointly with the American Water Works Association, the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, the Water Environment Federation, and the Water Research Foundation. WateReuse submitted a report to the EPA on July 1 detailing the water sector recommendations during the public comment period. The EPA released a draft WRAP for public comment and review at the

ADVERTISEMENT joined NACWA in 2008 after serving for 4 years as legislative counsel to the Water Environment Federation, where my policy advocacy also included biosolids management. Earlier in my career, I had the opportunity to represent the Rural Community Assistance Partnership, an organization providing technical assistance to small, rural communities on drinking water and wastewater infrastructure needs. I initially came to Washington in 1995 and served in the Clinton administration as deputy director at the President’s Council on Sustainable Development for the National Town Meeting on Sustainable America and as special advisor on livable communities to the deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2017, I was hired as executive director of the WateReuse Association, and I am excited to be a part of leading education and advocacy efforts to increase the amount of water recycling that happens in the United States.

issues, including issues related to climate change adaptation and poor water quality. The development of the WRAP not only elevates the profile of this effective water management strategy, but will hopefully lead to the adoption of more tools and resources to aid communities in planning water recycling projects. The WRAP will help identify challenges and opportunities to advance water reuse and recycling. This information will help the water sector prioritize and better coordinate existing research and development, financing, and implementation of water reuse across the United States as part of integrated water resources management.

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about the WateReuse Association and its advocacy. Patricia Sinicropi: The WateReuse Association is the nation’s only trade association solely dedicated to advancing laws, policy, funding, and public acceptance of recycled water. WateReuse represents a coalition of utilities that recycle water, businesses that support the development of recycled water projects, and customers that use recycled water. WateReuse is the go-to organization for policy on water reuse among elected officials and policymakers in every level of government. Our national office leads advocacy efforts with Congress and federal agencies, including the Bureau of Reclamation and the EPA. Seven state and regional sections work with state lawmakers and regulatory agencies to advance state policies on water reuse. We also provide education and training to help our members stay current, develop communications tools to support public acceptance, and provide a platform for water professionals across the country to share knowledge and exchange ideas on best management practices.

Patricia Sinicropi: The EPA has done such a great job of outreach in this effort, both among the federal agencies that have purview over water issues and water sector groups and practitioners. As a sector, we felt it was important that we speak with a united voice in joint recommendations about how the federal family can support communities, businesses, and agricultural operators in their efforts to adopt water recycling practices. The nation’s leading utilities in water recycling are WateReuse Association members, and our members definitely wanted to have input. And since we are talking about integrated water management, it made sense that we would engage with other national water organizations. We hosted expert convenings with the partner organizations on April 18 in Los Angeles and on May 9 in the Washington, DC, area to develop ideas for the WRAP. The workshops included more than 100 representatives from municipal utilities, technology and engineering companies, state regulators, federal agencies, environmental organizations, academia, and stakeholders from the oil and gas, agriculture, and irrigation industries.

Joshua Dill: How can the EPA’s national WRAP help the WateReuse Association’s mission of increasing water recycling across the United States?

Joshua Dill: Water reuse is such a broad field. How did you synthesize your water sector recommendations for the WRAP?

Patricia Sinicropi: There is innovative work happening across the water sector to advance water reuse, and the EPA wants to accelerate that work through coordinated federal leadership. The EPA has previously supported water reuse efforts, including development of publications like the 2017 Potable Reuse Compendium and Guidelines for Water Reuse, but the WRAP is the first initiative of this magnitude that is coordinated across the water sector. Once thought of as primarily a solution to drought in arid regions, water recycling has been recognized by more and more communities as a valuable addition to their integrated water management planning. It can address a multitude of

Patricia Sinicropi: Our recommendations focused on seven water reuse applications in which reuse is growing or growth is anticipated and action today would have lasting effect: potable reuse, onsite nonpotable water systems, industrial reuse, agricultural reuse, reuse for environmental restoration, reuse of produced water from oil and gas production, and stormwater capture and reuse. For each application, we described the challenges that currently limit water reuse in the United States and listed specific actions that would be needed to address those challenges. In total, the EPA received submissions from 53 commenters during the public comment period in the development of the draft WRAP.

Joshua Dill: Why did national water sector organizations feel it was important to develop joint recommendations for the WRAP, and how were they developed?

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The WateReuse Association held an expert convening with its partner organizations in Alexandria, Virginia, in May 2019 to develop ideas for the WRAP.

Joshua Dill: The decision to pursue water recycling is typically made locally and regulated at the state level. What is the appropriate federal role in water recycling? Patricia Sinicropi: The WRAP will establish a national imperative for safe, reliable and locally controlled water supplies. We also need Congress and the administration to align laws, regulation, and funding to help states and local governments find local solutions. The national growth in water reuse makes the federal role even more important. Investment in water reuse builds communities that are modern, sustainable, and stableâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;ready for families to flourish and businesses to grow. Joshua Dill: What kind of national growth are we seeing in water reuse?

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Joshua Dill: What does the future of water reuse look like? Patricia Sinicropi: The future of water reuse is exciting! There has never been more national interest in water reuse, and we expect that interest to continue to increase. In the future, we will not only see every community accept water recycling as a viable component of their water management strategy, we will see the public ask for it, businesses embrace it, and utilities enthusiastically provide it. M

Patricia Sinicropi is executive director of the WateReuse Association. For more information about WateReuse, visit www.watereuse.org.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF WATEREUSE ASSOCIATION.

Patricia Sinicropi: Recycled water is an effective solution to a multitude of water management challenges, including water supply resiliency, population growth, environmental enhancement and habitat creation, extreme wet weather events and combined sewer overflow, and saltwater intrusion. We have seen tremendous growth in water recycling in the traditional recycling centers of the arid West and South. This has largely been attributed to water supply challenges and the need for drought-resilient, sustainable supplies.

However, there is new and exciting growth in more waterrich areas in the Pacific Northwest and in cities such as Chicago, Atlanta, New York that are looking toward water recycling to help manage stormwater and receivingwater quality challenges. In addition, other regions on the eastern seaboard, such as Hampton Roads, Virginia, are incorporating water reuse strategies to support their resiliency and sustainability goals.

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Howard County’s Reclaimed Water Services

The Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant in Savage, Maryland.

oward County, Maryland, has started a reclaimed water program over the last few years that currently provides up to 5 million gallons a day (MGD) of reclaimed water to a government client in its area. It is seeking to expand its water reclamation and reuse activity with other new commercial and industrial clients, and potentially with public irrigation applications as well. In this interview, Art Shapiro, PE, PMP, bureau chief for utilities with the Howard County Department of Public Works, speaks with Municipal Water Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about Howard County’s current water reclamation and reuse program, his vision for the future, and his advice for other municipalities thinking about establishing a similar program. Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and your current position. Art Shapiro: In August 2016, I joined the Bureau of Utilities of the Howard County Department of Public Works. Prior to that, I joined the City of Baltimore in 2011 as chief of utility maintenance and later served as chief of engineering and construction for the Department of Public Works through 2016. Joshua Dill: Would you give us an overview of Howard County’s water services?

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Joshua Dill: When did your water reuse activities begin, and what was the motivation behind starting the project? Art Shapiro: The design-build project for the construction of the new reclaimed water pump station to serve Fort Meade was completed by the Howard County Bureau of Utilities in 2015. Fort Meade, which is home to several government

PHOTOS COURTESY OF HOWARD COUNTY.

Art Shapiro: Howard County purchases treated water from the City of Baltimore and from the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC). Baltimore provides about 18–19 MGD, and WSSC provides 4–5 MGD, so the ratio is about 75/25. The water distribution system is located primarily in the eastern half of Howard County, where our

Metropolitan Services District is located. The western part of the county is more rural, and most of the customers there still use well and septic systems. We serve about 270,000 customers, and the Bureau of Utilities is responsible for 24/7/365 response for system repairs for both water and sewer collection. We also operate the Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant (LPWRP) in Savage, Maryland, which is a state-of-the-art enhanced nutrient removal facility. This plant is undergoing a $92 million upgrade to achieve Class A biosolids and move away from lime stabilization to a state-of-the-art sludge-drying process. We have a vibrant water reclamation and reuse program, which has been in place for several years. The starting point of the program was completion of our Route 198 Reclaimed Water Pump Station, capable of providing 5 MGD of reclaimed water flow to the Fort Meade Army Post in neighboring Anne Arundel County. The Reclaimed Water Pump Station, located in Anne Arundel County, lies just adjacent to the post. We provide reclaimed water directly from that pump station to an elevated storage tower located on the post. We are actively pursuing expansion of our reclaimed water system. We have infrastructure in place leading to another commercial customer, which remains to be connected pending execution of a formal agreement. Our goal is to increase the scale of our reclaimed water distribution system.

ADVERTISEMENT agencies, needed reliable water supply to cool its power and facilities infrastructure. The motivation behind our reclaimed water program is to beneficially reuse reclaimed wastewater and so reduce the quantity of fresh water purchased daily by the county. This environmentally sound reuse approach provides a distinct long-term financial benefit to the utility. The sale of reclaimed water serves a critical need of the federal facility and provides a revenue stream that enhances the reliability and long-term resiliency of the county’s utility systems to serve our customers.

our water reclamation plant, which is where we send the majority of our sewage collection product. The 5 MGD that we are currently committed to provide the post is the maximum design basis required by our customer. The post is currently using much less than that, but it still pays for the water it does use. We recognize billings and revenues from the program on the order of about $1.4–$1.6 million a year.

Joshua Dill: What requirements did Fort Meade have for the quality of the water you provide, and will the same kind of water be provided to other commercial customer facilities?

Art Shapiro: The most important thing is to learn about the marketplace, identify the potential benefits to the surrounding users, and identify the locations of the industries that are your potential users. For us, the government’s operations were the driver. Geography has a big effect on the design and the potential end cost of extending a reuse flow. Our treatment plant is located in a part of the county that is not heavily urban, but it is an urban-influenced area, on the main thoroughfares within the county going north and south and east and west. There are facilities in the area that could benefit from the availability of reclaimed water, namely industrial and commercial entities that use significant amounts of water for cooling purposes or for washdown.

Art Shapiro: The reclaimed water meets the following standards: maximum total dissolved solids of no more than 470 milligrams per liter, turbidity not to exceed 5.0 nephelometric turbidity units, and a minimum chlorine residual of 0.5 parts per million (ppm) and a maximum chlorine residual of 1.0 ppm at the various delivery points. Yes, the water would be the same for other commercial customer facilities. It will be used for facility cooling purposes. Joshua Dill: Would you tell us about the benefits of reuse for the environment? Art Shapiro: The excellent standards of the LPWRP mean that the water leaving the treatment plant is actually cleaner than the receiving water of the Little Patuxent River. In addition, the user of this water was able to avoid the difficulties of obtaining regulator approval of a proposed groundwater appropriations permit that would have been required otherwise. Joshua Dill: What would the biosolids that you are planning to produce be used for? Art Shapiro: The biosolids that we currently produce are Class B, which may be used for land application for agricultural purposes. However, the land applications of biosolids may be restricted because of wet weather restrictions during the winter months. Therefore, the decision was taken to create Class A solids by migrating from the line stabilization process to a drying process. Class A biosolids are much more marketable. We are also reducing the total usage of chemicals, which will reduce the number of truckloads of biosolids from seven to one per day, which in and of itself will reduce the costs of the treatment process and handling and distribution. Joshua Dill: Does creating 5 MGD of reuse water reduce the amount of water you purchase by a corresponding amount? Art Shapiro: No, because the water that we are using as the source water for our reuse water is the effluent from

Joshua Dill: What advice would you have for other utilities that are considering starting a water reuse program?

Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your vision for the future of Howard County’s water reuse program. Art Shapiro: The vision for us is to continue to expand the system. There’s infrastructure in place between the treatment plant and our next large consumer. All that is necessary for that to go live is the completion of the private-side reclaimed water line and a pump in an existing pump station in our treatment plant to provide the dedicated flow to the new customer. Our vision is to continue to find potential users for reclaimed water. We are thinking primarily of irrigation. Beneficial reuse of reclaimed water is not new. I worked for a manufacturer of disinfection equipment that was involved in the effort with the California Department of Health Services during the period when updated title 22 regulations were being developed for the use of reclaimed water where human contact was possible, primarily in the irrigation of medians and golf courses. That was the beginning. The reclaimed water market is much more developed in the West, of course, because of the arid climate, but in the East, even with plentiful water, reclaimed water creates a renewable resource that would otherwise just go to the outfall and provides something useful that can benefit a utility in a tangible way. M Art Shapiro is bureau chief for utilities with the Howard County Department of Public Works. He can be contacted at ashapiro@howardcountymd.gov.

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Upcoming Events October 2 Golf Tournament, Oregon Water Resources Association, Sisters, OR October 25 H2OPen Golf Tournament, Arizona BWC, Casa Grande, AZ October 29 Conference and 55th Annual Meeting, Columbia Basin Development League, Moses Lake, WA November 4–8 USCID’s 2019 Conference, USCID, Reno, NV November 6–8 88th Annual Conference, NWRA, Houston, TX December 2 Annual Agribusiness Roundtable, Arizona BWC, Tempe, AZ December 4–6 Annual Conference, Washington State Water Resource, Spokane, WA December 11–13 Annual Conference, CRWUA, Las Vegas, NV December 13–14 2019 Winter Meeting, Western Governors Association, Las Vegas, NV

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Municipal Water Leader October 2019

Articles inside

Howard County’s Reclaimed Water Services

Water Sector Supports Development of National Water Reuse Action Plan

How OCWD Is Addressing PFAS Contamination

How Eastern Provides Recycled Water to Wetlands, Farms, Power Plants, and More

Pentair: Water Reuse From Stadiums to Factories to Private Homes

Demonstrating the Feasibility of Large-Scale Reuse in Southern California

San Diego's Pure Water Program

Using Water Twice