Work has been underway on a recycled water treatment project in Santee for about two years. In another two years, some East County residents will get their drinking water from the East County Advanced Water Purification program.
It’s a massive billion-dollar recycled water treatment plant north of Santee Lakes that, at its peak, has 250 construction workers working on it.
Kyle Swanson, the CEO and general manager at the Padre Dam Municipal Water District, says the project will meet about 30% of drinking water demands in East County alone. Right now, most East County residents get their water from Northern California and the Colorado River, according to Swanson.
“This is a needed project that would be an answer to the drought that regularly plagues San Diego County,” Swanson said.
When the project goes online by winter 2026, some customers in Padre Dam Municipal Water District and Helix, Lakeside and Otay water districts will receive some of the water that passes through here.
Swanson explains how it will work.
“There is wastewater generated in East County. That’s going to be sent up to a treatment plant for processing. That’ll produce recycled water,” Swanson said. “It’ll go through another advanced water purification project to produce purified water. That purified water will get pumped through Lake Jennings, which is a surface body reservoir in Lakeside.”
Swanson says the water will sit in Lake Jennings for four to six months and then move to be treated at a drinking water treatment facility before it reaches homes. In addition to water supply, Swanson says it comes with other advantages too. Three megawatts of renewable energy will be generated from digester biogas and organic waste, which will supply up to 60% of part of the program’s electricity.
“There’s also a benefit of offloading wastewater that’s currently being treated and dumped out to the Pacific Ocean, so there’s a significant environmental impact,” Swanson said.
In terms of the cost to customers, Swanson says they shouldn’t expect an increase.
“We don’t anticipate it changing,” Swanson said. “In fact, this project moving forward was cost competitive with importing water and delivering wastewater for treatment into the San Diego region.”
With so much construction happening inside the future facility, Swanson reminds commuters of what they can see out on the roads.
“There’s also approximately 30 miles of pipeline being constructed,” Swanson said. “Currently, the pipeline for the conveyance of the purified water is about 30% complete moving through the communities of Santee and Lakeside.”
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