Construction has officially started on the City’s Recycled Water Conveyance Pipeline System, a major sustainability initiative aimed at providing reclaimed water for irrigating City parks, landscaping, and turf areas for Soledad Unified School District. Once finished, the system will replace around 54 million gallons of potable well water each year with recycled water produced at the City’s Water Reclamation Facility. This innovative project includes: Over five miles of new conveyance pipeline, a state-of-the-art 1.5 million-gallon-per-day pump station, upgraded irrigation systems, a sophisticated hydraulic analysis using modeling software to simulate the conveyance system under a wide range of conditions, more than 180 engineering drawings, nearly 1,000 pages of specifications, and countless hours of collaboration between our engineering team and the City. Together, these efforts will allow the City and SUSD to keep irrigating sports fields even during future droughts—ensuring green, safe, and usable spaces for the community all year round. While recycled water use is common in other parts of California, Soledad will be the first agency in our region to water parks and school fields with renewable, recycled water, marking a significant step forward in local water conservation and sustainability.
SOLEDAD’S RECYCLED WATER CONVEYANCE PROJECT:
The City of Soledad has been working for 20 years on utilizing recycled water to preserve its groundwater resource. From the water we drink, shower, clean, and irrigate, one of the highest uses of water a City experiences is turf irrigation. Soledad parks and schools use up to 231 acre-feet (approximately 75 million gallons) for turf irrigation alone. Therefore, this project aims to install approximately 5 miles of pipeline in the City to establish a citywide distribution system to bring recycled water to the Soledad Parks and Schools. This enables the City to replace up to 165 acre-feet (approximately 54 million gallons) per year!
20 YEARS IN THE MAKING…
- 2005 – City Council approved the Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP), establishing a strategy to preserve groundwater and pursue recycled water as a long-term resource.
- 2006 – Adopted the Long-Term Wastewater Management Plan (LTWMP), outlining improvements to meet General Plan buildout, including wastewater treatment upgrades to Title 22 standards for recycled water use. Approved engineering contract with Black & Veatch, leading to the creation of Recycled Water Ordinance No. 645 (approved in 2007).
- 2008-2010 – Constructed a $60M Title 22 Water Reclamation Facility. While plans included a citywide recycled water pipeline, budget constraints limited installation to the railroad tracks.
- 2011 – Awarded $1.16M Prop 84 Grant from the Water Resources Board to design and construct the remaining pipeline connection from the WRF to Veterans Park.
- 2017 – Pipeline construction completed. Additional tasks were required to begin irrigation at Veteran’s Park: permitting, irrigation system conversions, signage, and purple pipe installation. All but permitting were completed by summer 2024.
- 2022 – City Council authorized staff to apply for the Urban Community Drought Relief (UCDR) Grant to fund the Soledad Recycled Water Conveyance Project, expanding recycled water use to City parks and schools.
- 2023 – City awarded $16.66M UCDR Grant from the California Department of Water Resources to implement citywide recycled water distribution.