EMWD joins 'Imagine Day Without Water' campaign

News release from Eastern Municipal Water District:

On Oct. 21, Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) will join water districts and other water utility service providers across the nation to ask customers to “Imagine a Day Without Water.”

Sponsored by The Value of Water Campaign, this sixth annual event underscores the importance of a clean, reliable supply of water and the value of this essential resource in our daily lives. As EMWD celebrates our 70th anniversary as a water agency this year, we recognize that dependable access to clean, safe water can easily be taken for granted.

From our start in 1950 as a small agency serving a handful of residential, business, and agricultural customers, EMWD has become one of the state’s largest water agencies. Our commitment to customers is underscored by the leadership of our Board and executive managers who prioritize maintaining and expanding a diverse supply of water sources to reliably and cost effectively serve homes, businesses, and agricultural enterprises in Riverside County.

The initiatives underway at EMWD include our Groundwater Reliability Plus program, a series of innovative projects that will improve the quality and quantity of water in our local groundwater basins.

This effort is complemented with an award-winning recycled water program, groundwater desalination, water use efficiency initiatives and water banking to provide drought protection. Through this diverse water supply portfolio and our reliable imported water supplies, EMWD is working to ensure that our nearly 1 million customers have the water they need, when and where they need it.

Our newest Groundwater Reliability Plus program, known as Purified Water Replenishment, will safely supplement our local groundwater supplies by using advanced water purification processes successfully implemented by other forward-thinking water agencies in California to provide a new, reliable supplemental water supply.

EMWD’s recycled water will be put through a rigorous multi-stage purification process of microfiltration and reverse osmosis, then combined with other surface water supplies to replenish the groundwater basin safely and effectively. After naturally filtering through the ground and blending with other groundwater sources for at least six months, the water will be pumped from the aquifer and receive final purification before being sent to homes and businesses.

Purified Water Replenishment will help provide a sustainable local water supply for the region, which means EMWD will not need to purchase more imported water to serve our customers during a drought.

This program will soon be entering the environmental review process and EMWD is actively seeking grant funding to build the facility and related infrastructure at the lowest possible cost to our customers. Since our start 70 years ago, EMWD has worked to make sure our customers will only have to imagine a day without water, but never experience one. EMWD continues to invest in environmentally sustainable water resource projects that will benefit our ratepayers and region for the next 70 years and beyond.

We encourage you to learn more about our groundwater sustainability initiatives at www.emwd.org/gwr-plus.

Paul D. Jones II, P.E.
General Manager
Eastern Municipal Water District