EAST COUNTY NEARS VOTE ON WASTEWATER PLANT TO INCREASE WATER

System would have potential to recycle millions of gallons

East County is moving closer to building a new wastewater treatment plant to recycle millions of gallons a day, amid a severe lack of rainfall that’s pushed the region into its driest period in a millennium.

Officials with the local Helix Water District have announced they and other project leaders are more than halfway done designing a system to make the region less reliant on outside water. The governing body overseeing the project is scheduled to vote May 19 on a final price with contractors, a spokeswoman said.

Construction should begin as soon as June so the plant can be up and running by 2025.

“We’re in the midst of a mega-historic drought,” Mark Gracyk, one of the district’s elected representatives, said during a public meeting last week before the Lemon Grove City Council.

Without the changes, “our kids and our grandkids would not be able to enjoy the same quality of life that we’ve enjoyed,” he said.

Leaders don’t expect the upgrades to directly increase how much residents pay for water.

A combination of grants, loans and other incentives will cover the cost, estimated to be between $600 million and $700 million.

The vast majority of East County’s water comes from hundreds of miles away, in Northern California and the Colorado River. The more than quarter-million people directly served by Helix receive only an average of 14 percent from local sources.

That’s partially because most imported water is used only once.

Millions of gallons of wastewater specifically from El Cajon, Santee and other parts of the county are quickly passed on to the coast. With the exception of some water cleaned and reused as irrigation at the Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve, around 13 million gallons daily move to a plant in Point Loma before ending up in the Pacific Ocean.

The East County Advanced

Water Purification project aims to make about 11.5 million gallons of that safe for drinking.

Two new facilities will be built to clean the water. One building will use newer methods, including filters that can remove particles 100,000 times smaller than a human hair and ultraviolet light that can effectively kill viruses.

The cleaned water will then flow to Lake Jennings in Lakeside, where it will sit for several months, before it’s cleaned a third time and sent to kitchen sinks.

Within a few years, closer to 45 percent of the region’s water should be local, not imported, officials said.

The project will be run by the Padre Dam Municipal Water District and it’s partnering with Helix, the county and El Cajon on the overhaul. A representative from each sits on the Joint Powers Authority board, the governing body overseeing the project.

The city of San Diego is similarly working on its Pure Water project to recycle tens of millions of gallons.