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Demonstrating the Feasibility of Large-Scale Reuse in Southern California
Reverse osmosis trains at Metropolitan’s demonstration facility.
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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.
