Safe Water, Iffy Politics

In 1995, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved using $36 million in state funds for a water reclamation project to replace water the city had for half a century drained from Mono Lake.

Today the reclamation project is built and ready to go. But City Councilman Joel Wachs, now a candidate for mayor and not above a bit of demagogy, is having second thoughts.

He claims he didn’t understand back then what the project would do. The fault was not his, lest anyone wonder what else he might have voted to spend millions on without understanding. No, the fault lay with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which did a lousy job explaining that water from toilets and sinks would be treated and reclaimed as drinking water.

Maybe, as Wachs implies, the DWP tried to pull a fast one on the Los Angeles public, or, more specifically--and this is another bit of demagogy--on the San Fernando Valley.

Maybe the DWP approached the admittedly squeamish subject so delicately no one understood where the water would come from and how it would be used.

Maybe the reclamation project simply got lost in the statewide hoopla over saving ecologically devastated Mono Lake.

Maybe. But a search of The Times archives turns up stories that made clear that the project involved treating sewage water to use as drinking water.

Not everyone reads The Times, even we admit. But in these articles and in letters to the editor, the reclamation project was defended by some, including health officials and environmentalists, and assailed by others. These people knew what it was about. Even Jay Leno joked about it then, as he does today--which only goes to show even jokes get recycled.

An aside on the project’s name: East Valley refers to where the filtering would take place, not solely where the reclaimed water would be used. Highly treated waste water from the Donald C. Tillman sewage plant would be piped to spreading grounds in Sun Valley and Pacoima and allowed to filter through sand for five years. The reclaimed water, tested and disinfected, would then be blended with the city’s other water supplies.

Some Valley voters are always looking for something to be disgruntled about, which would explain why some politicians eager to court these votes would downplay the reclaimed water that would go to such neighborhoods as downtown Los Angeles, Hancock Park and the Hollywood Hills.

Safe drinking water is serious business, and the public--citywide--has a right to know what steps the DWP will take to ensure that water from the East Valley Water Reclamation Project is safe to drink. But we’d venture to guess that most of us don’t know the source or treatment of the tap water we now take for granted--or, for that matter, the bottled water we unquestioningly drink. As DWP general manager S. David Freeman points out, ground water already includes runoff from oil-infested streets and pesticide-laced fields, from lawns polluted by fertilizer and dog waste. Like the making of sausage and legislation, the production of water is not for the squeamish.

Finding water in a semiarid region is serious business too. In 1995, Southern Californians were close enough to the 1987-1992 drought years to understand this desert city’s need to look for alternative water sources. Today, with a string of wet years behind us, we’re happily in denial, along with Wachs and fellow amnesiacs such as state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar), who also was on the City Council in 1995 but now objects to the reclamation project.

Does the East Valley Water Reclamation Project need to be carefully monitored and tested? Absolutely. The DWP is doing the right thing by holding public workshops to explain just what those safeguards are. By all means, go and ask questions--about the science, not the politics.

To Take Action: The DWP will hold public meetings from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Reseda High School, Regent Hall, 18230 Kittridge St.; June 26 at Chatsworth High School, 10027 Lurline Ave.; and June 29 at Millikan Middle School, 5041 Sunnyslope Ave., Sherman Oaks.

When it was approved, the water reclamation project was defended by some--including health officials and environmentalists--and assailed by others. But contrary to what some politicians now claim, people did know what it was about.