For example, the water imported into Orange County from the Colorado River and northern California – water that’s mostly used by about 800,000 people who live in communities in south Orange County – is expected to become more expensive as the climate changes and as federal regulations limit that supply.

Another source – one that’s been pioneered by Mesa Water – isn’t expected to ever be a key factor outside of that district. Mesa, which provides water to about 110,000 people in Costa Mesa and parts of Newport Beach and unincorporated county neighborhoods near John Wayne Airport, has drilled below the county’s aquifer to find something known as “amber” water since the early 2000s. The amber water is tapped from an area that developed about 100,000 years ago, with its coloring coming from remnants of long-dead redwood forests and ferns that once were common to this region. To date, Mesa is the only agency tapping amber water, and it’s unclear how big a resource it would be if other agencies tried to do the same.

Another water source also is close to tapping out.

Orange County, for decades, has been a national leader in water recycling. The process, once viewed whimsically as “toilet to tap,” is now a widely accepted (and increasingly copied) technology, using massive filtration systems to harvest water used in everything from household taps to showers to dishwashers and reusing it for those same purposes.

Though that process has been used locally for many years, and now produces about 130 million gallons of water every day – roughly the same as what the county gets out of the Santa Ana River – Shoenberger noted that local water recycling reached maximum capacity only in the past year or so.

That means any net gains in local water supply will have to come from other sources.

“We no longer have the option of expanding our recycled water,” he said. “So, now, we’re at the point where everything locally has been tapped.”

Another factor prompting the exploration of brackish water is the California Coastal Commission’s decision, in 2022, to reject a $2.5 billion desalination project off the coast of Huntington Beach.

That project, from Poseidon Water, was pitched as a way to end the county’s need for imported water. But questions about cost and the harm the proposed desalination technology would do to the ocean prompted local organizations and many environmental groups to fight – and eventually defeat – the Poseidon project.

Using brackish water probably wouldn’t get the same pushback.

...continued

©2024 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit ocregister.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.