Pure Water EMWD: A Replenishment Project

Eastern Municipal Water District will soon break ground on a water supply project that will transform the way it provides clean and safe drinking water to its communities. 

The new Pure Water EMWD project will create a reliable and high-quality local water supply source, using advanced treated recycled water to replenish our groundwater basins. The result is a sustainable drinking water source that will improve the quality and quantity of our local groundwater supplies. 

For decades, EMWD has been a national leader in using recycled water to irrigate parks, schools, streetscapes, and agricultural crops. The concept of further cleaning recycled water so it can become a drinking water source has been successfully utilized for many years throughout California and the world. The process of doing so is simple and based in science and nature.

• The planned Pure Water treatment facility in San Jacinto will use high-quality recycled water and further treat it using both ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis. Those are two treatment processes EMWD already uses at its drinking water plants.
• The purified water is blended with additional recycled water, creating up to a 50-50 blend. It is then sent to the Mountain Avenue West Groundwater Replenishment Facility in San Jacinto, where the water will percolate into the ground and undergo the same natural filtration process that Mother Nature has been utilizing for millions of years. It will be underground for several years – significantly higher than the state minimum requirement of six months.
• The replenished water will blend with the existing water in the aquifer before it is pumped out using groundwater wells. It will be cleaned one final time and then enter our drinking water distribution system. That water will be held to the same state and federal water quality standards as our other drinking water supplies.

This process will not only create a drought-resilient supply of drinking water, but the purified water being replenished is so clean that it will improve the overall quality of our groundwater basins.

EMWD has already secured $30 million in federal funding from the United States Bureau of Reclamation and is targeting an additional $30 million in grant funding and $80 million in loans from the State Water Resources Control Board. This funding will help offset project costs and reduce the financial burden on current and future ratepayers.

As our region continues to grow, EMWD is proud to advance projects that reduce reliance on imported water supplies and enhance our local water supply sources.