California Governor Jerry Brown declared “water conservation a way of life” this week, with the expectation that people will be mindful and conserve water. Good thing California is chock full of environmentally friendly people that want to do the right thing, even if that means spending countless hours and gallons of gasoline hauling drought resistant recycled water from a filling station to their home.
RecycledH2O receives usage stats from a number of agencies across the golden state – their information for the month of April is below in no particular order.
Central Contra Costa Sanitary District
Since program inception, Central Contra Costa Sanitary District has given away 12,100,247 gallons, helping residential haulers keep their landscapes green while Governor Brown mandated 25% water use cuts, compared to 2013.
Last summer CentralSan gave away a little less than 12 million gallons to over 2,100 registered users. For the month of April, CentralSan gave away 267,730 gallons.
UPDATE: A error was made in December 2016, due to pressing the wrong key, our data has been off by 20,000 gallons. Monthly data is correct, the actual total number is 12,100,247. This post has been updated to include that correction.
City of Brentwood
Since January, City of Brentwood has given away the largest volume of recycled water per month, than any other fill station in California. Located in a sprawling community on the edge of the Delta, City of Brentwood continued their record pace by giving away 1,143,000 gallons, or nearly double what they gave away this past winter.
City of Brentwood is open 4 days a week, as noted on our “Where to get recycled water” map, from 8:00AM to 5:00PM. Daily give away volumes amount to just shy of 72,000 gallons per day. Users are limited to a 300 gallon maximum, but they’re definitely taking the drought seriously. All that recycled water is saving potable water supplies in an area expected to reduce usage by 28% (per Urban Water Supplier Conservation Standard released April 4, 2016).
Dublin San Ramon Services District
I visited DSRSD at the end of April (on a day their fill station was closed) and got to see their recycled water process up close and in person. There are so many take-aways from their operation, it is hard to mention just one.
Did you know DSRSD built a microfiltration and reverse osmosis facility in the early 1990’s with the end goal of recharging the groundwater basin, but after building the facility city residents voted down the use of the water and it was never activated?
Amazingly, DSRSD has given away 28,471,000 gallons since June 2014 when their program started. They signed up 22 new residential haulers in April and let 142,000 stream out their 33 hoses filling containers in trucks and SUV’s.
Dublin San Ramon Services District has a very interesting setup, they don’t store recycled water at their facility like CentralSan does, instead they pump it out to a distribution pipeline with a number of reservoirs scattered across their system and pressurize everything to 120PSI. (Normal home water pressure sits around 35-50PSI.)
Irvine Ranch Water District
Irvine Ranch hit a milestone this month! 100,000 gallons given away since program inception! Congrats!
Their monthly trend is very bullish, especially this month. In the 8 months since their residential fill station program started, 215 residents have signed up. They are open 7 days a week (except when raining) and are very active on social media as for when their fill station is open.
It just seems like the drought bug hasn’t hit Irvine like it hit City of Brentwood in Northern California. IRWD is very proactive when it comes to water conservation programs, such as promoting rain barrel installations on residents’ property by providing rebates for home owners.
Padre Dam Municipal Water District
Padre Dam in San Diego County surpassed the 100k milestone as well this month, adding 22,457 gallons given away to bring their total to 113,069 gallons since program inception. They have 50 registered users utilizing the facilities at their station.
—Charts will start next month—
Padre Dam MWD was recently in the news about their Advanced Water Purification Program (http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/feb/09/padre-dam-moving-ahead-on-water-purification/) with the ultimate goal of cleaning recycled water to a pristine form, cleaner than bottled water. Once the facility is built, it will provide up to 30% of the water supply for East San Diego County. A huge milestone for both AWP programs and having a facility available for operation when Direct Potable Reuse regulations are written by the end of the year.
Las Virgenes Municipal Water District
Las Virgenes operates their recycled water fill station every Saturday, but rain closes it. Last month they were open just 3 days and gave away 5,969 gallons to 68 registered users. In the 9 months since they began their fill station operation, LVMWD has given away 22,224 gallons.
Delta Diablo
Delta Diablo in Antioch, California re-opened on April 30th. Next month we will include their stats. They closed at the end of December as irrigation water is not in high demand during the rainy season.
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