ENCINITAS, Calif. - The Olivenhain Municipal Water District celebrated the opening of the Village Park Recycled Water Pump Station Monday -- a facility that will mean saving millions of gallons of water for the Encinitas area.
The pump station itself is buried underground and is capable of pumping three million gallons of recycled water into the community every day, which is roughly 114 million gallons every year.
"Local, sustainable recycled water," said Olivenhain's General Manager Kimberly Thorner. "Ten years ago, we didn't have any recycled water use in our district."
Thorner was happy with the opening because the Village Park project means the district now counts 20 percent of its water as recycled.
"We're also saving a lot of wastewater from discharging into the ocean every day," said project manager Chad Williams.
Flora Vista Elementary School was the first to receive water from the Village Park Recycled Water Project.
"It's nice to have the water and to know that under a drought condition we can still have green fields out here," said Gerard Devitt of the Encinitas Union School District. "Anything you can save money on goes back into the classroom."
The seven-mile pipe is also ready for future customers.
"Where we convert the schools, the HOAs, the greenbelts to recycled water," said Thorner.
