The Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency opened its Santa Clara and Honby Wells PFAS Groundwater Treatment Facility on Tuesday morning to help bring back previously shut-down groundwater supplies to the valley.
In the agency’s ongoing efforts to remove PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, from local drinking wells and restore local groundwater supply, Matt Stone, general manager of SCV Water, said the agency is proud to complete another milestone.
“This is our third PFAS treatment facility,” said Stone. “We’re bringing two additional groundwater wells back online and restoring water affected by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of synthetic chemicals also known as PFAS.”
According to Stone, this new facility will be able to restore enough water to serve approximately 1,700 people and, with the opening of another local water source, it will reduce the valley’s reliance on imported water, especially through times of drought.
Board President Gary Martin said that for more than 70 years PFAS chemicals have been manufactured and used in a variety of industries worldwide. This had led to trace amounts of the chemicals being found in local water supplies.
“While we did not put the PFAS chemicals in our water supply, it is our responsibility to take immediate steps to address them,” said Martin.
Kevin Strauss, a spokesman for SCV Water, said the wells in question were shut down in February 2020.
Martin added that SCV Water has remained determined to provide customers with safe and reliable drinking water and its team will proactively remain focused on investing in technology for treating and removing PFAS from groundwater.
“The new treatment facility includes a new chemical building, two treatment vessels, pumps, motors and ancillary equipment,” said Martin. “The facility uses ion exchange technology, a proven and cost-effective PFAS treatment option which removes PFAS to non-detect levels before entering the distribution system.”
The project relied on grant funding from the California Department of Water Resources, according to Martin. Using Proposition 1, the Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014, SCV Water was able to secure a $3 million grant from the Integrated Regional Water Management fund to partially pay for the construction cost of the new treatment facility.
The project also focused on the rehabilitation of the wells to maximize the flow of water from them, said Martin.
“We are able to produce 2,000 gallons of water per minute on average and ultimately store enough water to serve up to 1,700 families annually,” said Martin.
With this new addition, six wells have been brought back online since 2020 and SCV Water aims to bring one well per year back online moving forward.
