Modesto’s wastewater treatment plant is currently undergoing a $150 million upgrade.
The plan is that the upgraded facility will allow wastewater to be purified enough to meet the state standard for agricultural use.
Anthea Hansen runs the Del Puerto Water District and has cited that a quarter of the district’s 45,000 farm acres are fallow this year. The City of Modesto produces millions of gallons of wastewater every day.
The North Valley Regional Recycled Water Program will be the largest urban-to-agriculture water recycling project in the state.
Recycled water will still cost four or five times the normal price, the districts lack of water has growers jumping at the chance. Del Puerto Water District is entirely reliant on federal reservoirs, but the record-low snowpack has seen that source cut off for the last two years.
The project stills needs to gather a handful of permits, but the system could be in place in as little as three years.
Hansen thinks that Del Puerto’s project could become a model in the effort to achieve groundwater sustainability.
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