Massive Project Aims To Clean Valley's Contaminated Groundwater

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA — Officials broke ground Wednesday on the $92 million North Hollywood West Groundwater Treatment Project that aims to clean up and restore the use of groundwater in the San Fernando Valley.

The North Hollywood West site is the first of four planned remediation projects in the San Fernando Valley and is expected to be completed by early 2020.

"Water is our most precious resource -- and creating a more resilient, self-reliant Los Angeles means increasing the amount of water we source locally," Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said.

"The decontamination of this historic groundwater basin is a critical step in achieving our goal to reduce our dependence on imported water, so Angelenos will always have access to healthy, clean drinking water."

Garcetti was joined at the groundbreaking ceremony by council members Nury Martinez and Paul Krekorian, as well as officials from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the California State Water Resources Control Board.

Garcetti's office said the remediation of the San Fernando Valley Groundwater Basin advances two key goals of the mayor's Sustainable City pLAn by reducing the purchase of imported water by 50 percent by 2025 and producing 50 percent of Los Angeles' water supply locally by 2035.

The San Fernando Valley Groundwater Basin is an aquifer that can provide drinking water for more than 800,000 people, but parts of it are contaminated by industrial pollution dating back to the 1940s, Garcetti's office said.

"This is such a high-value project for people across the city of Los Angeles," Krekorian said. "For too long, we haven't been able to utilize the San Fernando Groundwater Basin because of contamination and pollution. With the North Hollywood West Groundwater Treatment Project, Los Angeles will finally be able to take full advantage of this groundwater resource."

LADWP was recently awarded a $44.5 million Proposition 1 grant from the State Water Quality Control Board to help fund construction for the new site and is applying for nearly $200 million more for the other three projects. All four remediation projects are expected to be operational by 2022, Garcetti's office said.

"A local, clean and reliable water supply for the San Fernando Valley is long overdue," Martinez said. "For too long, valley residents have borne the environmental burdens of the city's progress. Decades of development have contaminated the valley's groundwater, forcing families to rely on more costly sources from outside the city. We need to do right by our families, and by the environment."

City News Service; Photo: Shutterstock