Los Angeles is taking charge of the water crisis by spending $740 million to build a facility that converts wastewater into clean drinking water. The Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys will produce 20 million gallons of drinking water daily, the Los Angeles Times reported.
As long as the project stays on schedule, it will break ground this month with an expected completion date of 2027. This major investment is part of the L.A. Groundwater Replenishment Project approved by the Board of Water and Power Commissioners. Recycling wastewater isn't a new initiative for Los Angeles. However, the method was used for irrigation, whereas this initiative marks the first time the county will use this sustainable method to create more drinking water for residents.
This project may be breaking ground now, but it isn't new. Thanks to politics and misleading headlines such as "Toilet-to-Tap," this project has been delayed for almost three decades, per the Times report.
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As Mark Gold, director of water scarcity solutions for the Natural Resources Defense Council, stated in a release, "This was recycled water that should have been in the city's system 20 years ago, but the politics of water stopped it. It's great that it's finally happening and will be completed quickly."
In such time, California has continued to deal with frequent droughts to the point that the state has just initiated permanent water restrictions. Despite the planet's surface being 71% water, droughts have become more frequent on land, and experts predict an increase due to climate change.
According to the Global Drought Initiative, 48% of the Earth's land surface had extreme drought for at least a month in 2023. Therefore, conserving freshwater and finding alternative means for filtration is a necessity.
So, is turning wastewater to drinking water a California fad? Not quite. Others have also begun to test the possibilities of recycling wastewater, with some even converting it into beer.
While modern wastewater recycling plants are safe and rigorous, perhaps a less off-putting example of creative drinking water conversion is MIT engineers' discovery of a reliable and low-carbon way to convert brackish groundwater using solar technology for desalination. And for about two decades, the Caribbean island of Curaçao's main water supply has been a massive desalination plant that takes in seawater.
As Gregory Pierce, research director of the Luskin Center, stated in a release, "Because climate uncertainty will be the largest driver of the city's water shortage, the city must adapt by developing more local, reliable supplies. It's worth making that investment even though it's a high cost upfront."
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