The San Fernando Valley's industrial past has come back to haunt it. Starting in the 1940s, aircraft manufacturing and other heavy industry sites set up operations in the northeast Valley. The sites are long gone, but guess what got left behind? Hazardous chemicals that continue to contaminate the Valley's precious groundwater.
Now it's time to come clean.
The Sierra Club Angeles Chapter Water Committee recommends a Groundwater Basin cleanup plan put forth by the L.A. Department of Water and Power. Last year, the agency completed an $11.5 million study to document the contamination. Now it wants to move forward with a plan to build remediation facilities. The project would provide up to 9.7 billion gallons of purified recycled water by 2022 that would be used to replenish the Valley's groundwater basin. With the state's ongoing drought, that's a significant water boost.
Here's how it would work: A new water purification facility would treat water that comes out of the existing Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys. This purified recycled water would then be conveyed to the existing spreading grounds through new and existing pipelines to replenish the aquifers in the San Fernando Groundwater Basin. The projected cost is $400 million with an additional $19 million a year for operations and maintenance.
The city plans to begin its implementation in 2022, but Sierra Club thinks that's too long to wait. Sierra Club members, supporters and anyone who values clean water should sign this petition to speed up the process.