Reclamation plant first step in clean beach

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Aliso Creek Urban Runoff, Recovery and Reuse Water Conservation Project

Where: Laguna Beach

Cost: $2.8 million project between County of Orange, City of Laguna Beach and South Coast Water District

What: Plant will remove 800,000 gallons of runoff from Aliso Creek for filtration.

Additional benefits: Provides a water supply reserve in the event of disaster such as fire or earthquakes.

Contamination: Reduces contamination levels at nearby Aliso Beach.

Conservation: Helps restore habitat for the federally protected gobi fish.

Historic and current Aliso Creek flow

• Prior to the 1970s before the region became heavily urbanized, Aliso Creek was an intermittent stream. Creek flow data from 1930 to the 1970s show that during the summer months and dry periods, little to no flow is documented in lower Aliso Creek.

• Creek flow has significantly increased since 1970 with urbanization and residential development and the resulting urban runoff entering Aliso Creek.

• Over a 30-year period, flows in Aliso Creek from 1970 flows in the creek have increased 450 gallons per minute to approximately 4,500 gallons per minute.

• Aliso Creek flows year-round; creek flows have declined in recent years due to the drought and ongoing outdoor water conservation efforts.

• County data shows the average creek flow in 2012 at approximately 3,000 gallons per minute and in 2013 at approximately 2,900 gallons per minute. This represents an estimated decrease in creek flow by more than a third in less than 10 years – from about 4,500 gallons per minute in the 2004-2006 timeframe to approximately 2,900 gallons per minute in 2013.

Heal The Bay

Data: Three monitoring sites by the county provide weekly data. Heal The Bay calculates the data and puts it into an algorithm that calculates the grade.

Ratings: Since 2000, Aliso Beach has received an F nine times from Heal the Bay. 2008: B and 2013: B.

Grades: Given during the wet times of the year. Dry times of the year produce better results because the creek flow is lower and less bacteria flows onto the beach.

LAGUNA BEACH – Michael Beanan swims in the ocean off Thousand Steps beach at least three times a week – a habit he’s had for 30 years.

An avid ocean advocate, the former Navy SEAL has targeted ways to create a healthier ocean for years. Now for the first time he sees a solution to the brown and murky algae bloom often hugging the coastline of some of Laguna’s most picturesque beach coves. The bloom is caused by bacteria-filled water that flows along Aliso Creek and into the ocean at Aliso Beach from inland communities.

The murkiness stays concentrated in coves like Thousand Steps, where water has very little circulation. Recent data show that about 1.3 million gallons of runoff enter Aliso Creek daily from uphill communities. Recently, officials at the OC Health Care Agency closed the popular beach after 10,000 gallons of sewage dumped into the creek from a storm drain in Laguna Hills. Unlike Trestles Beach in San Clemente, where a berm filters runoff water that flows into the ocean, the berm at Aliso Beach is breached daily.

A new $2.8 million plant called the Aliso Creek Water Reclamation Facility is what Beanan calls the first step to taking a beach rated F for multiple years and turning it into an A or B beach in non-drought years.

Experts say the plant may remove as much as 300,000 gallons a day. Care will be taken to not remove too much water so as not to disturb wildlife habitat or to affect the lagoon at the creek’s mouth near the ocean.

Beanan, who two decades ago joined a city clean water task force and researched other facilities such as Santa Monica’s Urban Runoff Recycling Facility, is credited by project experts as being the catalyst that gave city, county and public agencies the needed push to look for solutions to help the beleaguered creek.

Beanan, who has a degree in biology from UCI, toured the Santa Monica facility and brought back some ideas that could work in South County to officials at the South Coast Water District and the city of Laguna Beach. He also helped write grant proposals that ultimately secured state funds.

The new facility was funded partly by $300,000 from a State Water Resources Proposition grant and $25,000 from the city of Laguna Beach. The rest comes from the water district’s operating fund. Officials at the water district say ratepayers won’t see an increase from the new facility – a collaboration of the County of Orange, South Coast Water District and the city of Laguna Beach.

It will remove runoff water coming from uphill communities in Trabuco Canyon and Saddleback Valley and turn it into reusable water. Although similar to SMURRF in its results, its technology is the first of its kind, said Andrew Brunhart, general manager of South Coast Water District.

It works by harvesting water through an extraction pipe – which protects against the removal of fish, plants and larvae – placed in Aliso Creek. The site is about half a mile from Aliso Beach near the South Coast Water District-owned Coastal Treatment Plant in Aliso and Woods Canyon Regional Park. That plant treats wastewater from homes in Laguna Beach, Emerald Bay and Dana Point.

The district’s water comes from the Colorado River through an open aqueduct traversing the desert. Due to evaporation along the route, the water arrives with a high salt content. Most homes filter out the salt with water softeners. About 10 percent to 30 percent of the brine water with high salt content is sent into the sewer system. Though the water is treated at the Coastal Treatment plant, it’s still too salty for use at golf courses or as landscape irrigation.

The new facility is dual-purpose. It captures urban runoff in the creek to be blended with present high-salt recycled water, diluting the salt content of the recycled water so it can be used for landscape irrigation.

And when the creek is too low for water recovery, the facility can be used to polish present recycled water supplies to a lower salt content.

The facility brings other benefits such as increasing the supply of potable water in the event of a disaster such as earthquake or fire.

Mike Dunbar managed South Coast Water District for 25 years. Recently he, representatives from the county, the city of Laguna Beach and the water district dedicated the new facility.

Reclamation plant first step in clean beach