It’s something we take for granted. We flush the toilet, and all the nasty stuff goes…it goes…well, where does it go?
In Ventura, it ends up at the Ventura Water Reclamation Facility, near Ventura Harbor.
Vince Ines, who’s Ventura’s Wastewater Utility manager, gives us a tour of the plant. We walk by huge processing facilities, where the water is going through a purification process. It handles about eight to nine million gallons of wastewater a day. After a three step process, the water is discharged into the nearby Santa Clara River Estuary.
"Everything we discharge goes to the estuary, and whether or not a sand berm builds up along the mouth of the Santa Clara River...if that is open...the water goes into the estuary and then the ocean. If it is closed, the water just accumulates in the estuary," said Ines.
But, with modern technology, it’s a missed opportunity to not only deal with the wastewater, but to make the city of nearly 110,000 people more drought resilient.
So, for several years the city has been working on a project called Ventura Water Pure. It would add additional, state of the art purification steps to the process to make the wastewater cleaner than drinking water.
"By adding on the ultrafilteration, reverse osmosis, and and the ultraviolet light and advanced oxidation processes, it really does all the extra steps to make sure the water is pure, and clean," said Ines.
In fact, it is so pristine that minerals have to be added to the water to make it drinkable, and safe for the environment.
But, there’s been a big hangup. The price tag is estimated at more than $370 million. The effort got huge news this week. The federal government is stepping up with two loans, totaling $173 million to pay for about half of the project.
"This project is what we need to build a resilient water future here in Ventura," said Radhika Fox, who is the Environmental Protection Agency’s Assistant Administrator for Water. "We know that water scarcity is a growing challenge, especially with the climate crisis."
The Biden Administration is helping to fund a number of cutting edge water projects across the country to help deal with the water crisis.
The project will be able to provide Ventura with about 20% of its water supply.
"It's being wasted. We are going to be able to fully recycle our water," said Gina Dorrington, who is the General Manager of Ventura Water. She says after going through the additional purification, the water will be injected underground, to be a part of the city’s groundwater supply.
The project has been in the works for years. "We've done a lot of planning, starting back in 2008," said Linda Sumansky, who is Ventura Water Pure’s Program Director. "To actually have the money to move forward is very exciting."
She said it’s being planned in a way so it could be expanded in the future, to allow for future growth, or even collaborations with neighboring communities.
Again, the water will be so pure you could drink it. But, state regulations don’t allow that yet.
Ines said that will come eventually, with recycled, and purified water goes going the drinking water system.
Ventura officials call the project the city’s drought-buster.
"It actually is...you're building a resilient water system where you're not just wasting the water, and having it go into the ocean," said Ines. You're helping nature move along the water purification process."
The work will start later this year. The City bought property for the facility at the intersection of Harbor Boulevard, and Olivas Park Drive. That’s across the street from the existing plant. It’s expected the project will be able to start recycling the purified water into the groundwater basin staring in 2027.
The city is hoping to get more outside funding for the $370 million plus project. City officials say the added cost to customers has already been factored into the current rate structure.
