San Diego Takes the Initiative on Water Reclamation

By Alison St John / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published November 18, 2008 at 3:08 PM PST

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

The city of San Diego will be the first city in the state to experiment with a kind of water reclamation called indirect potable reuse. KPBS reporter Alison St John explains.

The city of San Diego will be the first city in the state to experiment with a kind of water reclamation called “indirect potable reuse.”

KPBS reporter Alison St John explains.

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The cost of importing water is escalating and San Diego is at the end of the pipe line. So the city will invest in a demonstration project to prove it can safely recycle water to drinking standard or “potable” levels.

Orange County recently began recycling to potable levels, but it sends the reclaimed water to store in ground water basins.

Jim Barrett, head of Public Utilities, says the goal of San Diego city’s pilot project is to prove its recycled water is clean enough to return to its reservoirs.

Barrett: Nobody else in the State of California is doing it yet. There are some folks in Fairfax County in Virginia that have been doing it for about 30 years. Australia has been doing it for a while, Singapore’s been doing it, but nobody in California.

Barrett says San Diego has to get the go ahead from the State Department of Health before deciding whether to expand “ indirect potable reuse.”

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The demonstration project will cost about $11 million … the next step would mean an investment of up to $300 million.

Alison St John, KPBS news.

Alison St John

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Alison St John currently serves as a general assignment reporter and occasionally co-hosts KPBS Midday Edition. She fell in love with KPBS Radio when she arrived in San Diego in 1985 and first heard NPR. She has been a voice on KPBS Radio since 1989, and has served as a news reporter for radio, TV and the web, as well as anchoring, hosting, producing and editing. Alison has reported on stories about North County and was based in the KPBS' North County Bureau. Alison covered the metro beat during the critical period of the San Diego City pension crisis, and the education beat while Alan Bersin was the controversial Superintendent of San Diego City School District. She covered health when the industry was converting to managed care and told welfare reform stories in the late 1990s when Clinton was “ending welfare as we know it.” She has covered land use issues extensively, looking at the challenges of meeting a growing population while preserving community character, and developing a better transportation system to meet environmental concerns. She has done many stories on the military in San Diego, and the series she edited on the challenges veterans face returning from active duty to civilian life won “Best of Show” from the San Diego Society of Professional Journalists. She occasionally hosts the KPBS Roundtable and KPBS Midday Edition. Alison has won awards from the San Diego Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press TV and Radio Association, and the California Golden Mike Awards. Alison was born in Tanzania, brought up in Scotland, and earned her degree in psychology and sociology from Durham University in England. Her postgraduate diploma is in student counseling. She worked in England, Nigeria, Switzerland, Belgium, India, and Japan before moving to the United States in 1981. She now lives in Oceanside and enjoys how her community is growing and changing.

San Diego Takes the Initiative on Water Reclamation

The city of San Diego will be the first city in the state to experiment with a kind of water reclamation called indirect potable reuse. KPBS reporter Alison St John explains.

The city of San Diego will be the first city in the state to experiment with a kind of water reclamation called indirect potable reuse. KPBS reporter Alison St John explains.