TAPPING TOILET WATER TREATED SEWAGE TO RECHARGE AQUIFERS.

Byline: Michael Coit and Harrison Sheppard Staff Writers

Sewage water flushed by San Fernando Valley residents will one day end up flowing from faucets throughout the East Valley and much of Los Angeles as part of a new ``toilet-to-tap'' project that starts as early as Monday.

The concept seems repulsive at first glance - and some Valley leaders tried to make the point a decade ago - but state health officials insist the recycled water goes through a rigorous five-year purification and monitoring process that makes it clean and safe for drinking. It also is mixed with regular groundwater, diluting the amount of recycled water coming out of the tap to less than 20 percent.

The concept - embraced by environmentalists and some communities in Southern California - was designed to reduce Los Angeles' controversial dependence on water from the Mono Lake watershed.

City and state officials talked about the virtues of securing the region's water supply for years to come and using recycled water for lawns and industry. Drinking recycled water was mostly discussed as a futuristic concept.

But now that it is close to becoming a reality, residents of the East Valley, where the treated water would be first introduced, are unconvinced the ecological benefits outweigh the ``yuck factor.''

``This is human waste,'' said Lori Dinkin, president of the Valley Village Homeowners Association. ``I'm very uneasy about that.''

As for official assurances and studies that it is safe, Dinkin said, ``They also said that about Love Canal. And they have said all these lovely things about Agent Orange. I don't like to think about this.''

While the $55 million East Valley Water Reclamation Project could begin as soon as Monday, the water won't reach taps for at least five years.

Under a three-year pilot program, more than 10,000 acre-feet of wastewater, or 3.2 billion gallons, will be sent annually from the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in the Sepulveda Basin to the Hansen Dam spreading grounds, 10 miles away in Sun Valley.

The water seeps through the ground, which naturally filters it, and eventually becomes part of the groundwater that is pumped from wells, chlorinated, mixed with other water and piped to consumers.

If the system of motors, pumps and pipes performs well and monitoring wells confirm that groundwater quality is not affected, the project could be expanded to 35,000 acre-feet - 11.4 billion gallons - a year. That's enough to supply about 70,000 families.

Based on the water system's current setup, recycled water could be sent to homes in North Hollywood, Studio City, Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks and Pacoima. It could also go to most of Los Angeles south of the Santa Monica Mountains except Bel-Air, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood and the Harbor Area.

However, water officials note that they are planning a separate project that would allow water drawn from East Valley wells to be pumped up to the Los Angeles Reservoir, which means it could be sent to any of the DWP's roughly 630,000 households throughout Los Angeles.

City officials hailed the water recycling effort when they announced state funding for the project in 1993. But the praise was in the context of saving Mono Lake and using wastewater in landscaping and industry. In announcing construction funding, ``toilet-to-tap'' was mentioned by Mayor Richard Riordan and former Gov. Pete Wilson only as a possibility.

``It's one thing to use reclaimed water and to pump it to Forest Lawn to water the grass,'' said Gerald A. Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino. ``But it's another thing to take that water and put it into the drinking system - even with a five-year lag.''

COUNCILMAN: PUBLIC AIRING NEEDED

Although the project has been in the works for 10 years, there has been little public involvement or awareness of the issue in recent years.

Councilman Joel Wachs' office was surprised to learn the project was about to start. He plans to demand a public hearing on the issue before the City Council's Environmental Quality Committee, but the meeting would not affect the start-up.

``Even if there have been permits and the authorities say it's safe, when you start talking about drinking reclaimed water, there needs to be a public airing on this,'' said Wachs' deputy, Tom Henry.

Henry said they last heard of the project about five years ago when the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was trying to get various permits from state agencies.

Public hearings were held during the planning process in the early 1990s and in 1995. In addition, project manager Bill Van Wagoner said notifications were sent to homeowners in the area near Tillman and Hansen Dam affected by the pipeline construction, which began in 1997.

Environmental groups believe the project will reduce dependence on imported water and thus is less destructive to wildlife habitats in Northern California and along the Colorado River.

David Czamanske, chairman of the Los Angeles Sierra Club chapter's water resources committee, noted that in some respects all water has been recycled, whether by nature or by man.

``The water that we drink every day has been around for millions of years and circulated through who knows what - dinosaurs, black bears and panthers,'' Czamanske said. ``The water becomes purified through natural processes or it can be purified through reclamation processes.''

A CLOUDED HISTORY

Arguments touting the ecological benefit fell flat when San Diego proposed a similar ``toilet-to-tap'' project in the mid-1990s. But two Southern California cities are treating wastewater for human consumption.

One of the oldest, in operation since 1962, is the Montebello Forebay Groundwater Recharge Project, near the Whittier Narrows Dam. Operated by the Water Replenishment District of Southern California, it recharges the central and west basins with 50,000 acre-feet annually.

A second one has been operated in Orange County for about a decade, taking water from the Santa Ana River discharged by communities upstream from Anaheim and spreading it into the ground.

Neither project has experienced health risks.

Recycling wastewater will be increasingly critical in semiarid Southern California, officials say, because California - already the nation's most populous state - is expected to grow faster than any other state, placing greater demand on supplies of drinking water.

Growth could be exacerbated by a prolonged period of drier-than-normal weather - perhaps 20 years - expected by meteorologists.

``What we've realized now is there's no magic bullet when it comes to water supplies,'' said Thomas Erb, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power water resources director.

``In a drought, we would tap our groundwater surpluses as much as we could, but we hope to increase the groundwater supply for use on an annual basis,'' Erb said. ``The East Valley project, . . . if we can reach our maximum capacity there, is going to be a valuable, valuable project.''

SOLVING THE MONO LAKE PROBLEM

Los Angeles historically has drawn much of its drinking water from the Mono Lake basin through the city's aqueduct. Those imported supplies are supplemented by Valley groundwater and deliveries from the regional Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

A long legal fight that finally ended in the mid-1990s cut the city's take from the lake basin. More water must be left to restore streams and bring the lake back to levels set by the state Water Resources Control Board.

Los Angeles now draws about 65 percent of its drinking water from the aqueduct, compared with 75 percent earlier. Groundwater now accounts for more than 20 percent, and the Metropolitan Water District provides nearly 15 percent of the city's drinking water, Erb said.

Conservation since the drought of the early '90s has helped Los Angeles reduce water use to levels comparable to 1970, despite the addition of 1 million more residents.

Savings have come from volume-based water rates that encourage more efficient irrigation, ultra-low-flow toilet rebates and giveaways, and other incentives.

``The drought . . . basically was a wake-up call,'' said Hoover Ng, senior engineer for a project that recharges Los Angeles County's central and west groundwater basins.

``If we build up our groundwater basins, we could have enough water stored, like good depositors in a bank, when the next drought hits.''

CAPTION(S):

box, graphics, map

Box: WATER RECYCLING PROJECT

The First Step: TREATMENT AT TILLMAN WATER RECLAMATION PLANT

Graphic; Raw wastewater to recycled water for reuse.

The Final Step: NATURAL TREATMENT AND TESTING

Graphic: Donald C. Tillman Plant to distribution mains.

Map: EAST VALLEY WATER RECYCLING PROJECT/Pipeline Route

SOURCE: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

Gregg Miller/Staff Artist