Orange County’s Groundwater Replenishment System: Water Quality Monitoring and Facility Expansion in the Face of Changing Regulations

摘要

The Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS) is a 70 MGD indirect potable reuseproject located in Fountain Valley, California. Two ongoing state regulatory processeshave the potential to influence operations and water quality monitoring for GWRS andother groundwater recharge reuse projects (GRRPs) in California. The first is the effortby the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), in collaboration with theCalifornia Department of Public Health (CDPH), to establish monitoring requirementsfor constituents of emerging concern (CECs), such as pharmaceuticals and personal careproducts (PPCPs) and endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), for GRRPs. The secondprocess is the legislative mandate for formal adoption of the CDPH Draft GroundwaterRecharge Reuse Regulations (Draft Regulations) by December 2013. OCWD’s currenttreatment processes and monitoring programs should address most, if not all, of theimmediately forthcoming CEC testing requirements. However, potential changes torequirements for subsurface retention time, blending, and unit process monitoring wouldimpact future GWRS operations and uses.