On August 18, the Water District of Irvine Ranch announced upwards of $300 million in grants intended for recycled water programs for improvement of drought resiliency, as well as towards driving up access to clean and sustainable water usable by families residing in Orange County.
This money will also raise the recycled water reservoir capacity by an excess of 1 billion gallons. The aforementioned reservoir serves over 400,000 Irvine-based customers.
Recycled water is an important part of IRWD’s distribution network. In the city of Irvine alone, around 60% of the water gets used for landscape and irrigation, and this figure corresponds to roughly 85% of common areas that fall within the IRWD.
Congresswoman Katie Porter made the announcement, which says the authorities are going to use $12.2 million via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law towards increasing recycled water capacity in the city—mainly inside Siphon Reservoir—by over 760%.
The Syphon Reservoir, which was commissioned in 1949, constitutes one out of four recycled water reservoirs which are controlled by the water district based in Irvine. At present, this reservoir has a volume of roughly 500 acre-feet, and can store 188 million gallons of water.
Officially labeled as “Siphon Reservoir Improvement Project”, this expansion by IRWD will remake the Siphon Reservoir to 500 acre-feet and bring up the capacity to 1.6 billion gallons.
In Irvine alone, roughly 28% of the total water supply by IRWD is created using recycled water that mainly finds use in landscaping and irrigation. Distribution is carried out by an isolated network comprising purple-colored pipes.
Many expect the expansion to invite future benefits such as more recycled water, as well as the option to store higher amounts of drought-proof water.
Porter was joined by Deb Haaland of the U.S. Department of Interior and Camille Calimlim Touton of the Bureau of Reclamation. Porter noted that climate change effects are coming into focus already, suggesting that action needs to be taken sooner than later.
“Congress passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law knowing that the longer we wait to take action, the harder — and more expensive — it will become to solve both the water crisis and climate change,” Porter said. “I’m proud to have helped bring federal resources back to Orange County that will better protect the water supply so many in our community depend on.”
With regard to a timeline, the expansion project finished up its environmental review process as of July 2021. Design and construction will expectedly begin between spring this year and Winter 2023. Completion will estimatedly take 24 to 36 months.
“Water is essential to everything we do and it will take all of us, working together, to address the significant drought impacts we are seeing across the West,” Haaland said. “As the climate crisis drives severe drought conditions and historically low water allocations, President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is making historic investments to address water and drought challenges and invest in our nation’s western water and power infrastructure.”