The City of San Luis Obispo, like may western cities, is implementing a water reuse or water recycling project that will extend the City’s limited water resources by maximizing their use. The concept of water recycling in California is not new; however, in San Luis Obispo the project has evolved to balance the needs of both the environment and the community.

In the late 1980’s, the City was under great pressure from the Regional Water Quality Control Board to either improve the quality of its then secondary wastewater discharge to San Luis Obispo Creek, or to eliminate the discharge. Under consideration at the time were three project options: increase treatment levels to full tertiary in order to comply with permit limitations; construct an eight mile discharge pipeline and outfall to the Pacific Ocean; or pursue land disposal of the secondary effluent. The City Council at that time chose to pursue the full tertiary treatment option for two primary reasons: a philosophical responsibility that the City should provide for the highest treatment of its wastewater and not just select a less sensitive discharge location, and a recognition that moving to full tertiary treatment would create a tremendous opportunity to reuse the high quality wastewater effluent for irrigation and other non-potable uses.

In the ensuing 10 years, the City completed the $25 million upgrade to its treatment facility; completed lengthy and complex analysis of the impacts of reducing the discharge to San Luis Obispo Creek; which had become an effluent dependent habitat, and negotiated with the various regulatory agencies as to the mitigations required to implement the recycling project without significantly impacting the habitat of San Luis Obispo Creek. The project, as now defined, maximizes the beneficial reuse of the wastewater effluent through a balanced program of water recycling for municipal purposes, minimum and seasonal stream discharge requirements, stream and riparian corridor enhancements and ongoing monitoring.

Through water recycling, the City will be able to provide for roughly 10% of its ultimate water demand by offsetting the use of potable water for non-potable purposes such as landscape irrigation and industrial uses. Recycling coupled with an aggressive water conservation program may also enable the City to meet its total water supply needs through local resources and avoid the issues associated with importing water supplies. The City’s motto for the water recycling program “Once is Never Enough”, is consistent with the overall philosophy of the City’s recycling programs, that using our limited resources only once and then discarding them is not sustainable and is an unreasonable approach toward resource management.

The City takes great pride in the Water Reuse Project as one which has followed a responsible and balanced approach in its development and implementation. While attaining this balance has taken considerable time and effort, the result is one that is consistent with the philosophy of San Luis Obispo toward environmental sensitivity and responsible resource management.
 

John Moss - Former Utilities Director

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