UWM Plan - Municipal Water District of Orange County

Section 7
Future Water Supply Projects and Programs
Table 7-1: Specific Planned Water Supply Projects and Programs (continued)
Project Name
SMWD por. SJBA Upper Basin
wells
So Coast WD S. Laguna
Reclamation Expansion
So Coast WD Capistrano Beach
Desalter Expansion
Type of
Water
GW Nonpotable
On-line
Date
Normal
Year
Yield
AF/yr
Single
Dry Year
Yield
AF/yr
Multiple
Dry Year
#1 Yield
AF/yr
Multiple
Dry Year
#2 Yield
AF/yr
Multiple
Dry Year
#3 Yield
AF/yr
2015 900 900 900 900 900
Recycled 2015 400 400 400 400 400
GW
Recovery
2015 1,200 1,200 1,200 1,200 1,200
YLWD Recycling Recycled 2014 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000 5,000
Note: Projects are in various stages of development; some are only conceptual, and some may not get built unless they
receive grants and/or rebates.
7.4. Desalination Opportunities
Water treatment technology has continued to advance, and costs have continued to
decrease, providing greater opportunities to develop previously unusable surface water,
groundwater, wastewater, and ocean water for potable water supply. One of the great
success stories in advanced water treatment technology since its invention in the mid-
1960s at University of California Los Angeles has been the development and
advancement of Reverse Osmosis (RO) membrane systems. Membrane systems have
seen increasing application in water supply for removal of salts and other constituents,
such as synthetic and natural organic compounds. In addition, many other advanced water
treatment technologies, such as advanced oxidation and improved disinfection methods,
have been developed and are continuing to be invented and further refined. These unit
processes, including membrane systems, can be used in various arrays to meet particular
water treatment needs for a given water source.
Today, membrane treatment with RO systems is considered by most practitioners to be
the preferred cost-effective technology for desalination and natural organic compound
removal (colored groundwater, etc). Most of the earlier ocean desalination projects have
been built outside of the United States and were primarily thermal distillation systems.
Today, most of the newer plants use RO membrane technology. In addition, a newer
membrane technology, Microfiltration (MF), is also seeing increased application in
surface water treatment and for pretreatment in ocean water desalination projects using
open intakes for feedwater supply and RO for desalination.
Municipal Water District of Orange County
2010 Regional Urban Water Management Plan
Final
7-4