How Pleasanton Plans to Save 450 Million Gallons of Water a Year

Pleasanton is about to embark upon an ambitious recycled water project which, when finished, will bring approximately 450 million gallons a year of recycled water to the Hacienda Business Park, the Ken Mercer Sports Park, and the Tennis and Community Park.

“City staff has been working for the past 4 years in preparation for this moment,” said Nelson Fialho, Pleasanton City Manager. “We received $17 million in low-interest loans and incentive grants from the State to develop the purple pipes’ infrastructure to pipe recycled water to some of our city’s largest water consumers.”

To spur the development of the requisite infrastructure for purple pipes (the recycled water distribution mechanism), the State last year provided $1 billion in low-interest loans and incentive grants to local governments and agencies to encourage the use of recycled water.

Pleasanton received a roughly $12 million low-interest loan and an approximately $5 million grant to deliver more than 450 million gallons of recycled water to the Hacienda Business Park, the Ken Mercer Sports Park, and the Tennis and Community Park.

“The average annual water usage for the Ken Mercer Sports Park alone is nearly 64 million gallons,” Fialho said. “We have built our community around providing outstanding amenities, including our 44 parks and numerous playing fields, so when the drought hit us, we all paid the price. But it looks like purple is the new green,” Fialho said, adding “and we’re very excited to be building the largest retrofitting of purple pipes in the Tri-Valley area.”

Engineers and construction crews are currently out in the field setting up signage, chalking areas to be trenched, and getting ready for the purple pipes to be delivered on-site.

Crews will be installing nearly 10 miles of purple pipes and the entire project will last roughly 1 year. “We recognized this is a big project and there will be some inconvenience attached to it, like temporary lane closures and some parking disruptions, but we appreciate everyone’s patience and hope people recognize that the long-term gain of an overall 10% savings in drinking water will be worth the short-term inconvenience,” Fialho concluded.

--Image via Stanford University