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Wastewater Recycling Plant On South Coast On Cutting Edge Of Technology

Oxnard's Advanced Wastewater Purification Facility is turning out millions of gallons of water daily with better than bottled water quality.

California's drought is prompting all kinds of approaches to conserving water on the Central and South Coasts.

One of the most high-tech is a plant in Ventura County.

The plant saves millions of gallons of drinking water a day by purifying wastewater into water so clean it can be used for agriculture.

In fact, the water is so clean it may sometime soon be used as tap water. 

The Advanced Wastewater Purification facility in Oxnard is a $57 million dollar project which is on the cutting edge of water recycling technology. 

The plant takes wastewater already cleaned to state water quality requirements, but instead of discharging it into the ocean, some of it is diverted to the new plant for addition cleaning.

The plant could eventually create enough recycled water to meet the entire City of Oxnard's tap water needs, although at this point the state isn't allowing recycled water to be used as potable water.

Lance Orozco has been News Director of KCLU since 2001, providing award-winning coverage of some of the biggest news events in the region, including the Thomas and Woolsey brush fires, the deadly Montecito debris flow, the Borderline Bar and Grill attack, and Ronald Reagan's funeral.