County and city agencies therefore joined forces with various water purveyors on a reclaimed water delivery system called the North Los Angeles/Kern County Regional Recycled Water Project, typically called the backbone system.

Various factors contributed to the Valley’s water shortage, including a two-year drought and orders from a U.S. District Court judge to slow down California Aqueduct pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to save a protected species of fish called the delta smelt. Those pumps send water from Northern California to communities in Southern California, including the Antelope Valley.

Furthermore, the Antelope Valley groundwater basin is dropping in some spots from overdraft – more water pumped out in a given year than could be replaced by nature in that same amount of time, according to some water experts.

At the rate the Valley population is growing, by 2035 this region will have half the water needed to meet the demand, according to presentations made at stakeholder meetings of the Antelope Valley Integrated Regional Water Management Plan.

Water suppliers concurred with county and city officials that the use of reclaimed wastewater, treated to a higher level of disinfection, could keep the Valley from running dry.

Wastewater treatment plants in Palmdale and Lancaster are being upgraded from a secondary level of disinfection to a tertiary level, which actually brings the treated water to drinking water quality, though at this time California law doesn’t allow it to be used for that.

But state law allows the use of tertiary-treated water for functions including municipal and industrial needs, such as irrigating the grassy areas of parks, golf courses and cemeteries; cooling water for power plants; agricultural irrigation for fruits and vegetables; and also groundwater recharge – not by direct injection, but by blending with surface water and then being allowed to seep into the ground.

The backbone system “integrates the whole Valley,” officials said.

The system will connect the wastewater treatment plants in Lancaster, Palmdale and Rosamond, and then entities that want to tie into the project can do so by constructing additional pipelines.

After the backbone system is completed, project planners will tackle the next steps – construction of four storage reservoirs and construction of four pumping stations. Those phases, like the backbone system, must comply with the California Environmental Quality Act requirements which include offering the public sufficient time to comment on their support or opposition of the plans.