Construction begins on pipeline to keep drinking water clean

Jenny Marder

Construction is underway on a pipeline that will prevent saltwater

from intruding into the city’s primary water source.

Saltwater has been creeping around the saltwater barrier, a high

pressure system that pushes saltwater back toward the ocean and away

from the city’s supply of fresh groundwater.

“The salt would contaminate our water supplies if we don’t keep it

out,” said Jenny Glasser, spokeswoman for the Orange County Water

District. “If the saltwater did encroach on our groundwater supply,

we would have to find a way to remove it.”

Fresh water pumped through the new pipeline will be injected into

a line of underground wells, increasing their water pressure. The

high pressure will force the saltwater back toward the ocean and away

from the city’s groundwater source.

“It creates a water dam,” Glasser said. “The pressure of the dam

forces the saltwater back where it came from.”

The 9,000-foot pipeline will run from Adams Avenue in Huntington

Beach to the Fountain Valley intersection of Ellis Avenue and Ward

Street.

The need for a stronger seawater intrusion barrier was discovered

when regulators from the county’s water district found elevated

levels of salt in the water wells during routine monitors.

“It means saltwater is coming closer to the current barrier,”

Glasser said. “When we see higher levels, it means we need to do

something before it moves into our drinking levels.”

Once salt enters the water, it would no longer be suitable for

human consumption, said Howard Johnson, interim Water Operations

manager for the district.

“If we lost our wells, we would have import more water, and it

costs three times more to import water,” Johnson said. “Our rates

would go up.”

The pipeline is part of a $450-million joint project with the

Orange County Sanitation District to build a Groundwater

Replenishment System, which would take treated sewage water from the

sanitation district and, using a microfiltration system, reverse

osmosis and an ultraviolet light disinfection process, purify it to

drinking water standards or better.

Federal and state funding have been secured to cover about a

quarter of the project’s cost, Glasser said.

Half of the purified water will be pumped into the saltwater

intrusion barrier, and the other 50% will provide Huntington Beach

with an additional drinking water source -- enough to supply water to

140,000 families.

“This is 20% of the need for all of northern and central Orange

County,” Glasser said.

District officials predict the system will be ready in 2007.

Construction of the pipeline is scheduled to be completed in

September 2003.