WBMWD Edward C. Little Water Recycling Facility

On November 27th, 2019, I also visited West Basin Municipal Water District (WBMWD)‘s Edward C. Little Water Recycling Facility (WRF) in El Segundo, CA. This facility is an advanced water purification facility (AWPF) similar to OCWD’s GWRS. Edward C. Little WRF produces approximately 40 million gallons per day (MGD) of highly purified reclaimed water for seawater barrier, groundwater recharge, and industrial reuse, including low and high pressure boiler feed water for adjacent refineries, which makes this facility very unique. Secondary treated municipal wastewater is sent from the City of Los Angeles Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant to Edward C. Little WRF and further purified by a series of advanced treatment processes, including ozonation, microfiltration (MF), reverse osmosis (RO), and UV/hydrogen peroxide advanced oxidation process (AOP), followed by mineral addition. For industrial reuse, AOP is not used, but 2-pass RO is employed to produce extremely low dissolved solids/hardness water in the case of high-pressure boiler feed water production. Ozonation was introduced in 2013 to reduce organic fouling in MF. The finished water can be tasted at Edward C. Little WRF. The water actually tastes better here because the calcium is added to the RO and AOP treated water. The RO concentrate is currently discharged to Pacific Ocean.