Don Bunts, Deputy General Manager of Santa Margarita Water District (L) and Kevin Frabotta, LMVA General Manager (R) accepting the award.
PHOENIX, AZ, OCT 2, 2017 -- Lake Mission Viejo Association (LMVA) was awarded the Customer of the Year Award at the 2017 WateReuse Symposium in Phoenix, AZ, September 12, for the innovative approach implemented to replacing potable water for lake refill demands.
Located in the City of Mission Viejo, California, Lake Mission Viejo is a 125-acre man-made recreational lake that is owned and operated by the LMVA which has over 75,000 members. Constructed in 1976, the Lake had been filled by natural sources and potable water purchased from the Santa Margarita Water District (SMWD). The amount of potable water purchased over the past 25 years averaged 230 acre feet per year, which is enough water to meet the annual demands of 850 homes in the community.
In May 2015, four years into a severe drought, the California State Water Resources Control Board enacted an emergency regulation for statewide urban water conservation which required a reduction in potable water usage. This regulation, along with a long-standing desire to find a more environmentally sustainable water supply for recreational water use, stimulated SMWD and LMVA to evaluate alternative sources of water to maintain the Lake's level.
Following a review of available options and an extensive public outreach campaign, LMVA and SMWD decided to build an Advanced Water Treatment Facility (AWTF) at a recycled water reservoir and pump station adjacent to the lake that is owned and operated by SMWD. The AWTF consisted of a treatment train comprising micro-filtration followed by reverse osmosis and then ultra violet disinfection and chemical conditioning, similar treatment to that used for indirect potable use of recycled water in California. This would be the first recreational lake in California to use highly purified recycled water as make-up water.
With the drought continuing to provide pressure to reduce potable water usage, SMWD coordinated an innovative project delivery method that allowed the AWTF to be installed 8 months from project approval. Wigen Water Technologies was selected to provide fully assembled skid mounted microfiltration and reverse osmosis systems, allowing fast installation so that the treatment system could be started up while the surrounding building was still under construction.
Further innovations in the design and construction that contributed to the short project schedule included utilization of an existing abandoned pipeline to the lake as a sleeve for the pipe that delivered treated water to the lake and using the discharge pressure from the RO system to deliver treated water to the lake without any additional pumping.
For its rapid response and innovative approach to eliminating drinking water for lake refill and for its commitment to using recycled water for 100% of irrigation demands, the LMVA was a deserving winner of the 2017 WateReuse Association Customer of the Year Award.
