Overview:
As droughts become more common, the quality of the East Bay's water supply is at risk.
The East Bay Municipal Utility District, which supplies water to most of Richmond, is in the midst of six multi-million dollar water plant improvement projects that feature a new way of purifying water.
Customers have seen some bill increases and will see additional hikes to pay for the projects.
East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) officials have known for nearly a decade that something major would have to be done to protect the water source for 1.4 million people in Contra Costa and Alameda counties.
A drought had hit California hard in 2014. It was the worst drought in the state, scientists said, in 1,200 years.
The extreme dry spell depleted the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada. Rivers and creeks dried up. And EBMUD’s San Pablo and Briones reservoirs near Richmond’s eastern border were at alarmingly low levels.
Then, rain returned in the winter of 2016 to 2017. The rush of water was a welcome sight, but it produced a worrisome problem.
Organic matter that accumulated during those drought years was flushed into EBMUD’s water system, unleashing pathogens such as bacteria along the way.
That required EBMUD to add more chlorine to purify the drinking water the utility sends to its customers, chlorine that can produce disinfectant byproducts that can affect water quality.
With the likelihood of droughts becoming more common due to climate change and other factors, district officials embarked on a 10-year $713 million capital improvement plan to install an ultraviolet light disinfectant system and make other improvements at all six of its water treatment plants.
“We were trying to keep our eyes as wide open as possible,” said Nelsy Rodriguez, an EBMUD spokesperson. “We started planning for these droughts to be longer and more significant.”
Work began in 2022 at the Orinda Water Treatment Plant, which serves Richmond as well as most of west Contra Costa County. That $341 million project is scheduled to be completed by early 2027.
Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, who represents the western part of the county, including Richmond, points out that the Orinda facility is 90 years old and needed some upgrades in addition to the new ultraviolet light technology.
Gioia, who served on the EBMUD board from 1989 to 1998, also notes that EBMUD’s back-up water supply in drought years comes from the Sacramento River. That water, he said, isn’t as high quality as EBMUD’s regular supply.
“The new treatment process becomes even more important then,” he said.
Customers see higher water bills to help pay for treatment plant upgrades
EBMUD has raised rates, in part, to pay for the improvements.
Customer bills went up 6.5% districtwide this year and will jump by the same percentage next year. The increase added $3.77 per month to the average EBMUD bill this year and will tack on an additional $4.30 per month starting July 1.
Customers who receive wastewater service from EBMUD, which includes most of Richmond, are paying an average of $2.31 more per month this year and will see another $2.35 monthly hike next year.
Rodriguez said the payoff is that customers will continue to receive high quality water from EBMUD.
She explained that the district draws most of its water from the Mokelumne River in the Sierra Nevada.
“That’s pure snow melt. It’s straight from the Sierra. It’s naturally high quality water,” Rodriguez said.
The water is delivered to the Bay Area via a 90-mile system of aqueducts and pipelines. No pumps are needed because it’s a downhill route from the Sierra to EBMUD reservoirs.
The water eventually makes its way to EBMUD’s water treatment plants. Besides Orinda, there are treatment facilities in El Sobrante, San Pablo, Oakland, Lafayette and Walnut Creek.
Rodriguez said about 90% of the water stored in the San Pablo and Briones reservoirs is snow melt from the Mokelumne. The other 10% is from local rain and runoff.
Orinda is the largest of EBMUD’s water treatment plants. The facility on Camino Pablo was built in 1935 and provides water for 800,000 customers, including all of Richmond.
Helix Electric has been working on the improvement project in Orinda for the past three years.
In late September, the Oakland-based construction company reached a milestone when it finished installing a prefabricated electrical building there.
“This project is not just about infrastructure. It’s about ensuring the community benefits from a reliable and efficient water system,” Jason Pengel, an executive vice president at Helix Electric, said in a statement. “Our commitment is to provide sustainable infrastructure that meets modern demands and prepares the plant to withstand future challenges.”
The main component of the project is an innovation that uses ultraviolet light (UV) instead of chlorine as the primary decontamination strategy to kill bacteria and viruses in the district’s water supply. This process was actually invented in France in 1910 but hasn’t been used much in the United States.
The UV decontamination system instantaneously destroys pathogens as raw water passes through a pipe under fluorescent lights. Those lights use ultraviolet rays that break down the DNA of bacteria, viruses and other organic compounds. Chlorine will still be used as a secondary disinfectant to prevent bacterial outbreaks in water that is sitting in pipes.
The primary objective, Rodriguez says, is for customers not to notice any difference in the taste of their drinking water, whether there’s a drought or not.
Gioia says the new systems are “good news for Richmond residents.”
“It’s a great investment to maintain water quality and ensure that we continue to get some of the highest quality water in the state,” he said.
