$110 MILLION FOR RECYCLED WATER MAYOR SAYS NETWORK COULD MEET GROWTH NEEDS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

LANCASTER - A consultant estimates it will cost $110 million for the city of Lancaster to create a recycled-water network.

A master plan for water recycling prepared by RMC Water and Environmental shows a citywide system capable by 2012 of handling 6,000 acre-feet a year, roughly the amount used by 6,000 households.

Mayor Frank Roberts said such a network could meet the needs of an increasing population, reduce overdrafting of the region's groundwater, and ease the burden on the Los Angeles County sanitation district that serves Lancaster.

``It is something we have to do,'' Roberts said. ``If we don't do this now, it'll cost a lot more to put it in later.''

For a local cost comparison, Eastside High School, under construction by the Antelope Valley Union High School District in east Lancaster, is expected to cost more than $100 million.

The city is looking at the idea of creating an enterprise fund in which the users of the water would pay the costs of creating and operating the network, said Randy Williams, the city's public works director.

``The only way it works is if you have the customers to sell it to,'' Williams said. ``We think we can do this at 50 percent to 70 percent of the cost of potable water. That gives an incentive for people to connect to it.''

The city will also look toward federal funding to assist with the project. Up to $10 million in federal aid to help pay for the backbone network was authorized last year by the House of Representatives at the request of U.S. Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Bakersfield, whose congressional district includes part of Lancaster.

The Senate is now considering the request, which is part of the $10 billion Water Resources Development Act.

The $10 million is to be added to $14.5 million in federal aid previously authorized.

Lancaster officials expect this spring to award a contract for the first phase of the network, a 4.5-mile pipeline running south from Avenue E along Division Street. The initial project, estimated to cost about $2.2 million, will take water from Los Angeles County's Lancaster sewage treatment plant and use it to irrigate a baseball complex the city is developing at the former Antelope Valley Fairgrounds and for watering a cemetery and school fields.

By summer, as much as 500,000 gallons of water a day that went down Lancaster's drains and toilets could be recycled to irrigate grass and plants. The treated water would meet state standards as clean enough to swim in, though not to drink.

The master plan calls for a second phase expanding the initial system by running a pipeline to the city's 160-acre soccer complex on the eastside. The pipeline would run south on Division to Avenue K and then east to 30th Street East.

A third phase would run a pipeline west along Avenue K to 70th Street West and a north-south pipeline from the Lancaster sewage treatment plant to Avenue K. A third pipe would run along 40th Street West between avenues K and M.

A fourth phase would run a pipe along Avenue H between 30th and 90th streets east.

County sanitation district officials are upgrading and expanding their Lancaster operations. Until 2009, when the upgrades to the treatment plant will be completed, the city will receive recycled water for free.

The city is negotiating with the sanitation district for the purchase of water after 2009, Williams said.

Jim Skeen, [phone]

james.skeen(at)dailynews.com