Still no treated colored water in Costa Mesa

Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- Problems in the city’s colored-water treatment plant’s

electrical system have kept the facility from its long-awaited grand

opening for more than a month, water district officials said Thursday.

In late December, Diana Leach, assistant general manager for Mesa

Consolidated Water District, said the plant has begun its final testing

and could reasonably be expected to open in a few days.

But the days came and went, and the plant still has not completed the

seven-day test necessary to begin pumping water throughout the city.

The problem has nothing to do with the water quality or the filtration

system, but is instead related to mechanical parts that have to be

tweaked in order to work together properly, said Amanda Gavin, a Mesa

Consolidated spokeswoman.

Lynette Round, another Mesa Consolidated representative, said the

facility keeps shutting down before it can get to the seventh day.

“We got to the fourth day, and it just shut down again,” she said. “We

want to get the mechanical functions running smoothly seven days, 24

hours each day, before we start distributing water into the system.”

The water district has worked for 16 years to provide treated colored

water -- high-quality underground water that starts with a color like

weak tea and a sulfur smell -- to its customers.

Substituting treated colored water for imported water will protect the

district from a water shortage and should keep water rates stable when

surrounding districts’ water bills rise, water district officials say.

The treatment plant will use an ozone and biofiltration process to

remove the color and smell from the water, which is found in aquifers

between 600 and 1,200 feet underground.

Originally scheduled to open in September, then October, the

completion of the plant was postponed because of design changes --

including adding a well and improving the filters -- to double the

capacity of the plant.