OCWD was recently notified that it has been awarded a $2,860,540 Proposition 1 Water Recycling Grant for its La Palma Recharge Basin Project.

The La Palma Recharge Basin Project, located east of the Carbon Canyon Diversion Channel between La Palma and Miraloma Avenues in the city of Anaheim, will join the more than 20 facilities in northern Orange County that are managed by the Orange County Water District to place water into the Orange County Groundwater Basin.

The La Palma project involves excavating and exporting of soil from the project site, constructing a pump station and building a water supply pipeline to connect the newly constructed basin to OCWD's Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS). Upon project completion, La Palma Basin will receive 45.6 million gallons of high-quality water per day from the GWRS, the world's largest water recycling plant for indirect potable reuse. This is enough water to meet the daily water needs of more than 387,000 people. La Palma Basin will be the only OCWD basin plumbed exclusively for GWRS water and is designed as a dual basin—the water level can be lowered so the basin can be operated as two separate entities—which should help facilitate basin cleaning while continuing to receive flows.

The La Palma Recharge Basin Project began in November and is projected to last approximately 10 months.