Sewage-to-faucet recycling to expand

In a plan that will reverberate more than 300 miles north at Mono Lake, Los Angeles city leaders have decided to nearly double the wastewater that will be transformed into drinking water at the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys.

- IAN JAMES

NEW FACILITIES at a DWP plant in Van Nuys will be able to purify enough water for 500,000 people.

ERIC THAYER Los Angeles Times

Instead of treating 25 million gallons per day as originally planned, the L.A. Board of Water and Power Commissioners voted to purify 45 million gallons, enough water for 500,000 people.

Board President Richard Katz said this will enable the city to stop taking water from Sierra streams that feed Mono Lake — a major shift that will address longstanding demands by environmentalists, who criticize L.A. for failing to allow the lake to rise to a healthy level.

“This is a solution with lots of winners,” Katz said. Once the recycled water starts flowing, he said, “we won't need Mono Lake water to meet the supplies in L.A.”

He and other board members said the plan will help L.A. weather droughts, become more locally self-sufficient and take less water from distant sources.

The expanded project is set to be built by the end of 2027 at a cost of $930 million.

More than a dozen environmental advocates who spoke last week at the meeting where the vote was held praised the decision, saying the project is long overdue.

They celebrated it as a solution that will bring Angelenos water reliably and economically, while enabling the L.A. Department of Water and Power to finally live up to its commitment to restore Mono Lake.

"This is a massive, massive achievement," said Bruce Reznik, executive director of the group Los Angeles Waterkeeper, adding that the project provides the "critical water security and water resilience that we need in L.A., with a droughtproof source of local water."