Conserving water with advanced reuse strategies in California's West Basin

A Veolia employee walks among water treatment infrastructure

The water recycling facility has received numerous awards for its innovative operations.

A Veolia employee works in a lab testing water quality

 

The challenge

The project challenges are:

  • Recurring droughts in Southern California have caused urban water users to rethink how they use and manage water.
  • With limitations and uncertainty about imported drinking water supplies, the need to ensure adequate supplies for the entire service area, including local industries is a priority and challenge for the community.

The solution

Innovative solutions:

  • Since 1995, the West Basin Municipal Water District's Edward C. Little Water Recycling Facility in El Segundo, California has been producing advanced treated reuse water for groundwater injection, commercial and industrial use. It also produces water for irrigation purposes. This water reuse is easing the demand for water supply imported from Northern California and the Colorado River.
  • Veolia recycles influent water for various use cases such as industrial, irrigation water, cooling tower water, groundwater recharge, low pressure boiler feed water, high pressure boiler feed water and indirect drinking water.
  • Using two or more of five different customer-tailored processes - filtering, disinfecting, removing ammonia, microfiltration, and reverse osmosis - Veolia treats water through varying levels of purification to properly meet the customers' needs.

Benefits for our clients

Results:

  • The water recycling facility has received numerous awards for its innovative operations. Most recently it was honored in 2020 as a Utility of the Future Today by the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, the Water Environment Federation, the Water Research Foundation and the WateReuse Association, with input from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
  • The West Basin plant is the only treatment facility in the country that produces five different qualities of fit-for-purpose recycled water that meet the unique needs of West Basin's municipal, commercial and industrial customers.
  • By using recycled water, the amount of treated sewage discharged into Santa Monica Bay is reduced, improving the environmental condition of our coastal waters.
  • The facility produces 11 MGD of “barrier water” which protects the West Coast Groundwater Basin from becoming saline due to seawater intrusion, and recharges the local groundwater basin.

Learn more about our solutions:

Water Solutions
Waste Solutions
Energy Solutions