The City of Oceanside received $4.565 million in state grant funding from the Department of Water Resources (DWR) to expand the City’s compressive water reuse efforts. The state grant funding is available through California’s Integrated Regional Water Management Program, which supports comprehensive water reuse programs like Oceanside’s in order to increase water sustainability throughout California.
The City of Oceanside received funding for two different water reuse projects: Pure Water Oceanside and expanding recycled water infrastructure. The Oceanside City Council has played an integral role in establishing Oceanside’s water reuse initiatives. After realizing the variety of challenges Oceanside faces with importing the majority of the City’s water from the Sacramento Bay Delta and the Colorado River, the City Council set a goal of a 50% local water supply by 2030. In response, the City of Oceanside has developed a comprehensive water reuse program including expanding water recycling and advanced water purification.
“Maximizing local water supply reliability is important to Oceanside,” said Cari Dale, Water Utilities Director, City of Oceanside. “We’re grateful for the funding from DWR to be able to continue our efforts to reduce Oceanside’s reliance on imported water while minimizing the impact to rate payers.”
$1.45 million will be used to expand the City’s recycled water infrastructure. Oceanside currently has 1.2 miles of recycled pipeline that distributes nearly 70 million gallons (236 acre feet) per year. The distribution system currently supplies recycled water to the Oceanside Municipal Golf Course, Goat Hill Golf Course and El Corazon’s Sport Complex. The DWR funding will be applied to phase 1 of the recycled water expansion which will add approximately seven miles of distribution pipelines. Expanding the pipeline will allow the City to supply more customers with recycled water, including commercial users with significant irrigation demands for landscaping such as golf courses, HOAs, City parks, as well as industrial and agricultural customers. The recycled water funding is part of a grant collaboration between the City of Oceanside, Olivenhain Municipal Water District and San Elijo Joint Powers Authority. The total grant award is $2.8 million (of which Oceanside’s share is $1.45 million) with each agency adding recycled water infrastructure which will offset potable water demand.
The City will also receive $3.115 million for the Pure Water Oceanside Project , which will purify recycled water to create a new, local source of high-quality drinking water. The process uses state-of-the-art water purification steps that replicate and accelerate nature’s natural recycling process and will create between 3-5 million gallons per day of local supplies. The Pure Water Oceanside project will be constructed under five separate construction contracts and be complete by the end of 2021. Construction on two of the project components is currently underway.
This state funding is essential for the City of Oceanside to ensure local supply reliability to our customers. The water reuse initiatives create greater local control for Oceanside and will increase local supplies to 33% by 2023 and 56% by 2030. Oceanside received funding in two out of the eight projects included in the Water Authority’s regional grant package, which the California Department of Water Resources awarded a total of $15.3 million in state funding. These funds result from Proposition 1, a bond measure approved by voters in 2014 to improve water infrastructure statewide.