Rio Hondo Park uses recycled water for landscape irrigation

City may save up to 9 million gallons of drinking water annually COMMERCE, Calif. - Central Basin Municipal Water District has partnered with the City of Pico Rivera to connect the Rio Hondo Park to recycled water for landscape irrigation. This connection is the first park in Pico Rivera to receive recycled water. Several other parks will hopefully be connected in 2012. "Central Basin worked very closely with the city on this project," said Central Basin General Manager Art Aguilar. "Rio Hondo Park is the first of the city's parks to use recycled water and we are proud to have helped Pico Rivera achieve this important goal." Since February 2010, Central Basin has worked with the City to coordinate the logistics for the connection, which included constructing a lateral from the Southeast Water Reliability Project (SWRP) line down Pine Street, conducting shut down tests and ensuring that all health department requirements were met. While the city covered certain on-site retrofit costs, all other construction costs were covered through federal stimulus funds awarded to the District for construction of Phase 1 of SWRP. "Had it not been for the federal funding we received for the Southeast Water Reliability Project, we would not have been able to build the pipeline that made this possible," added Aguilar. "Recycled water use for non-potable purposes, like landscape irrigation, is necessary to ensure we have plenty of drinking water available for future use. The City is a great model for others to follow." Central Basin worked closely with the City to implement the park's potable service back-up and provide informational signage. As a result of the connection, the City will save an average of 27 acre-feet of drinking water per year at this site. That works out to saving nearly 9 million gallons of drinking water annually. (One acre-foot equals approximately 326,000 gallons, or enough water for two averaged-sized families for one year).

Melvin Wylie