LA has big plans to recycle more water. Why the city says it’s going to take decades to do it
L.A.’s big plans to recycle almost all of its wastewater for drinking is likely to take a lot longer than originally proposed. Back in 2019, former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a goal to recycle almost all of L.A.’s wastewater by 2035. But the long-awaited plan on how to actually do that pushes the timeline back more than 20 years — to 2056, though some wastewater would be recycled for drinking by 2040. “In today’s environment where literally our sources of water are drying up before our eyes, we need to move much more quickly,” said Bruce Reznik, director of the nonprofit L.A. Waterkeeper, at a special joint meeting Tuesday between the boards overseeing the L.A. Department of Water and Power and L.A. Sanitation and Environment, the city agencies leading the project.
Other water recycling and desalination news:
- Marketplace: The SoCal company aiming to make seawater drinkable
- KCLU (Santa Barbara, Calif.): New technology which could help ease droughts being tested in the Conejo Valley
