Water Agency To Partner With Residents On Recycling Project

PICO RIVERA, Calif., June 9, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- More than 75 Pico Rivera residents Saturday reviewed a Water Replenishment District (WRD) of Southern California plan to build a major wastewater recycling facility in their city and suggested ways to make the project aesthetically-pleasing and a venue for education programs and community events.

The state-of-the-art recycling facility on a 5.2-acre Pico Rivera site would yearly purify billions of gallons of wastewater and use advanced treatment methods to recycle that water for groundwater replenishment.

The meeting gave local residents an opportunity to share their views about how the treatment facility – to be built at 4320 San Gabriel River Parkway - should be designed and the types of community amenities that could be included in the project.

"It sounds like a beautiful idea," Pico Rivera resident Nancy Castillo. Castillo suggested the community amenities include a sculpture garden, public access to the San Gabriel River bike path (situated behind the WRD project property) and a community center that is available to the public.

"Whatever WRD does there, it will be better than what's there now," said Pico Rivera planning commissioner Paul Gomez, who noted that the future WRD facility site is now used by United Pacific Waste (UPW), a commercial and residential waste-hauling company.

Gomez urged WRD to include instructional exhibits at the facility for school-age students to learn about the importance of water conservation and to make its public amenities as user-friendly as possible

Other design and amenity suggestions from residents included Southwestern-style landscaping for the project, adobe-like architecture, demonstration gardens, bathroom and drinking fountain facilities for hikers, walkers and bicyclists, a pet-friendly area, picnic tables and a pedestrian bridge across the wide and busy San Gabriel River Parkway so local residents could easily and safely walk to the site.

WRD general manager Robb Whitaker said the agency would try its best to incorporate the community's suggestions into the final plan.

Traffic was a major concern of residents. But WRD officials said only about 3 to 5 trucks per week would be entering the finished facility. The major traffic impact, they said, would occur during the construction. WRD officials promised to work closely with the community to mitigate that impact.

Other residents urged WRD to hire local contractors and workers to build the project. "Our bidding documents encourage the hiring of local labor," Whitaker told the audience.

Later, Whitaker called the meeting a "great success."

"We at WRD learned a lot today, and the public learned a lot about what our project entails," said Whitaker. WRD has already pledged to make a community/visitor center part of the project.

"We're here to get your ideas about this project that can serve as an asset and resource to Pico Rivera," WRD Board of Directors member John Allen told the audience. "This meeting is the first step in WRD working with Pico Rivera as a community partner."

WRD officials also used the meeting to explain that the 45,000 square foot water treatment facility that will occupy about a third of the 5.2 acre site is part of WRD's Groundwater Reliability Improvement Program (GRIP). Under that program, WRD will entirely use recycled wastewater to recharge the giant underground aquifers the agency manages. The groundwater pumped out of those aquifers by local water companies and municipalities provides about 40 percent of the water used by 4 million residents of South Los Angeles County.

Currently about one third of the water WRD acquires to replenish the aquifers is imported from Northern California or the Colorado River. However, imported water is becoming increasingly expensive and difficult to obtain, conditions that have been aggravated by the state's drought, Whitaker explained.

When the water treatment facility in Pico Rivera becomes fully operational, WRD will no longer have to acquire imported water to keep its aquifers full.

For those who might feel queasy about the use of recycled wastewater, Whitaker reminded the audience that "all water is recycled water." The advanced water treatment facility will purify the wastewater, WRD officials said.

Whitaker also pointed out that WRD has been safely using recycled wastewater to replenish its aquifers for the past 55 years without any health problems. "Now we'll just be using more of it," he said. "Recycled water is entirely safe and there's a proven track record that it is."

Ken Ortega, WRD's assistant general manager, also told the audience that the construction of the wastewater recycling facility "will have zero impact on your water rates.""

For more information about the Water Replenishment District of Southern California, please visit www.wrd.org.

The Water Replenishment District of Southern California is the regional groundwater management agency that protects and preserves the quantity and quality of groundwater for two of the most utilized urban basins in the State of California. The service area is home to over ten percent of California's population `residing in 43 cities in southern Los Angeles County. WRD is governed by a publicly elected Board of Directors which includes Willard H. Murray, Jr., Robert Katherman, John D. S. Allen, Sergio Calderon, and Albert Robles.

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SOURCE Water Replenishment District of Southern California

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www.wrd.org