day of purified water from wastewater (Tweet This). The facility was built at a cost of $72 million in a partnership between the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) and the city of San Jose. The facility treats wastewater that would otherwise go into the San Francisco Bay for use as reclaimed water in irrigation, construction and industrial uses. They eventually hope to use some of the purified water to refill groundwater sources.

The Santa Clara County facility gets wastewater from the cities of San Jose and Santa Clara, and the goal had been to expand the recycled water to make up at least 10 percent of total county water demand by 2025. But due to the 4-year-old drought, the water agency is pushing its goals further: It's pursuingplans to expedite that goal by three years—to reach the 10 percent number by 2022—and partnering with other cities in the county to purity their water.

"It's a drought-proof supply, and it's also a local supply," said Colleen Valles, a spokesperson for the SCVWD. She said the water agency has five projects pending and is looking at expanding the recycling program in the county.

"It's a drought-proof supply, and it's also a local supply."

Meanwhile, the Orange County Water District (OCWD) is undergoing an expansion of its own at the water agency's high-tech Groundwater Replenishment System in Fountain Valley, California. The $481 million plant has been operational since 2008 and currently processes about 70 million gallons of treated sewage wastewater each day into drinking-quality water that goes into groundwater basins for