Drinking Water

Bryce Alderton Equipment to clean Orange County's drinking water will cost $5 million less than anticipated, said officials with the Orange County Water District. When bids came in this week USFilter submitted the winning proposal at $27.3 million to install microfiltration equipment that will screen out minute particles, bacteria and some viruses. The water district had budgeted the project at $32.5 million, said Jenny Glasser, spokeswoman for the water district.

Jenny Marder Construction is underway on a pipeline that will prevent saltwater from intruding into the city's primary water source. Saltwater has been creeping around the saltwater barrier, a high pressure system that pushes saltwater back toward the ocean and away from the city's supply of fresh groundwater. "The salt would contaminate our water supplies if we don't keep it out," said Jenny Glasser, spokeswoman for the Orange County Water District.

While Vic was off earning a living the other day, I caught an interesting show on the Planet Green channel. I’m pretty sure his vision of me is sitting at home in curlers, eating bonbons and watching daytime TV while he is working. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I don’t curl my hair. As an environmental writer, watching Planet Green is research. I was working. We’ll just ignore the bonbon aspect of his vision of how I work. The program, called “Ecopolis,” compared four innovative green technologies that can help cities in the near future.

Jenny Marder Orange County Water regulators have filed a lawsuit against 18 companies they say are responsible for a gasoline additive that has been found in a groundwater well and they fear could contaminate the county's drinking water supply. Methyl tertiary-butyl ether has been detected in low levels in the Orange County Water District's shallow aquifers. District officials suspect the carcinogen may have leaked into the groundwater supply from storage tanks in gas stations.

Dave Brooks The future of Huntington Beach's water supply doesn't come from the Colorado River or desalination. To discover the newest source of Huntington Beach and other local cities' drinking water, one needs to look no farther than a common household device: the toilet. Engineers with the Orange County Water District say it's not exactly desperate measures for desperate times, but water supplies are being tapped to capacity. Northern Orange County gets about half of its water from an underground aquifer while the rest is imported from Northern California and the Colorado River.

Last week, about 90,000 residents of Huntington Beach who buy water from the city were mailed a six-page report by the Public Works Water Division, entitled "2000 Consumer Confidence Report." It told us that for 2000, our drinking water has been up to snuff. The cost of printing and mailing the report? A mere $22,000 of your money. I found it interesting that I received the report in June 2001, telling me how my drinking water was in 2000. Excuse me here, but if there was a problem with the drinking water in January or February 2000, isn't it just little late to let me know about it in June 2001?

Ellen McCarty FOUNTAIN VALLEY -- Judgment day comes March 2000 for a $235 million state water bond that, if approved by voters, will contribute $37 million to a new drinking water purification system in North Orange County, water district officials said Monday. "The bond will take on the cost of water that would otherwise burden consumers," said Ron Wildermuth, spokesman for the Orange County Water District. As early as 2003, the Groundwater Replenishment System will convert the county's sewage water into ground water by pushing it through microfiltration and reverse osmosis, big words that describe the process of removing contamination at a molecular level.

WHAT HAPPENED: The Planning Commission has added religious assembly and public school use to a one-square-block area in the city. WHAT IT MEANS: The commission unanimously approved reshaping the zoning in the area bounded by Edwards Street on the west, Garfield Avenue on the south, Goldenwest Street on the east and Ellis Avenue on the north. The change incorporates Huntington Seacliff Elementary School, on Garfield Avenue. The addition of religious uses also puts the city in conformance with a federal law, known as the Religious Land Use and Institutional Persons Act of 2000, which requires cities to carve out a place for churches.

With Orange County's population expected to surge in the coming years, steps are being taken to ensure that cities have an additional source of clean drinking water. Huntington Beach is one several cities that will benefit from a $2.5-million federal grant, signed into law in November by President George W. Bush, to be used for a Ground-water Replenishment System project. It is a joint project of the Orange County Water District and the Orange County Sanitation District, to provide the county with a source of pure and safe drinking water that will serve as many as 200,000 families each year after its completion in 2006.

Ellen McCarty FOUNTAIN VALLEY -- At the Orange County Water District last week, former Sen. Paul Simon predicated that water may be the impetus for the next world war unless politicians dedicate time and resources to resolving the problem of vanishing water resources. "We're near calamity," he said. "The only reason we're not reading more headlines about water is because it's not a crisis, not yet." The county's water district, based in Fountain Valley, says it can avert that crisis with ground water replenishment, a system that converts sewage water to drinking water.

Vic and I attended the Newport Beach Film Festival this past weekend. Naturally, Vic and I focused on environmental documentaries. We saw three films, "A Fierce Green Fire,""Last Call at the Oasis,"and"Bitter Seeds. " "A Fierce Green Fire" is based on the book of the same name. The film explored the history of environmentalism from John Muir's failed attempt to save the Hetch Hetchy valley north of Yosemite from being dammed, up to today's battle to slow global warming.

Thursday is Groundhog Day. According to legend, if a groundhog comes out of hibernation and sees its shadow on this day, we will have six more weeks of winter. We sure could use more winter. Since California, like most of the United States, hasn't had much of real winter yet, our only chance for a good snow in the mountains lies ahead of us. It's been so warm that some pundits were calling the past month "Junuary. " Let's hope that Mr. Groundhog doesn't see his shadow, because we sure need the snow.

There was a great documentary last year called "No Impact Man," about a New York family of three that attempted to live an entire year with the smallest-possible footprint on the environment. The parents and their 2-year-old daughter subsisted in their apartment without electricity, heat, a car and other staples of modern life — including toilet paper, which may explain why their experiment hasn't caught on nationwide. I'm far from a No Impact Man myself. I'm typing this column on a computer that probably uses more energy every day than entire stretches of Rwanda.

The Parthenon it is not. There are no monumental facades, ornate columns or elaborate sculptures. And set back from Ward Street in Fountain Valley behind a screen of trees and bushes, it’s barely even visible to passersby. You’ve likely never seen it, but the Orange County Water District’s Groundwater Replenishment System is an architectural gem. Just ask the folks at Mammoth, an architecture blog that in January named the facility to its list of the best architecture of the decade.

Sprinklers going off during the day is no longer a sight to be seen in Huntington Beach and Sunset Beach after a new ordinance took effect Jan. 6, tightening water restrictions in response to water shortages. The ordinance, which limits watering times and days, and a temporary water supply shortage measure were approved by the Huntington Beach City Council at its Nov. 16 meeting. The city supplies Sunset Beach with water. “All cities had to cut back because of the drought situation,” Mayor Cathy Green said.

While Vic was off earning a living the other day, I caught an interesting show on the Planet Green channel. I’m pretty sure his vision of me is sitting at home in curlers, eating bonbons and watching daytime TV while he is working. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I don’t curl my hair. As an environmental writer, watching Planet Green is research. I was working. We’ll just ignore the bonbon aspect of his vision of how I work. The program, called “Ecopolis,” compared four innovative green technologies that can help cities in the near future.

Dave Brooks Facing the first major policy test of his political career, City Councilman Don Hansen isn't giving any indication which way he'll go on a controversial desalination project proposed for southeast Huntington Beach. In recent weeks, a stream of reports have surfaced critical of an environmental analysis of a plan by Poseidon Resources to build a facility capable of producing 50 million gallons of drinking water per day. It is such concerns that will weigh on his decision whether to certify the group's environmental report at the council's Sept.

Dave Brooks Backers of a controversial desalination project say Southern California is thirsty for a reliable water supply, but many wonder if the region will be able find someone to pick up the tab. Even by the most optimistic estimates, the water produced by the proposed desalination plant before the Huntington Beach City Council would cost nearly double what Orange County now pays for the most expensive imported...

Mike Churchin Uncanny? Strategic? Which term should we use to describe the pairing of front-page articles for the Jan. 13 Independent? The Poseidon article presents yet another developer (and a second attempt) promising grand returns to our city if we just let them build this wee little desalination plant behind the AES power plant. The Orange County Water District article offers the "tough sell" of making lemonade out of lemons by reverse osmosis conversion of sewage water to drinking water.