Valley cities look to recycled water to ease drought concerns

California is looking to recycled water to ease concerns of the drought. And Valley cities are hoping to squeeze every drop out of the opportunity.

As the state continues to cope with little runoff, low lake levels and depleting reservoirs, cities are looking for new ways to preserve potable water for drinking. One way is by recycling water for other uses such as landscaping and irrigation for agriculture.

Everyday nearly 68 million gallons of brown wastewater pours through two wastewater treatment plants on opposite ends of the city of Fresno. The department of public utilities said that's enough to cover a football field to a height of more than 15 stories.

But only a fraction of clean water flows out through either canals or purple pipes to irrigate the greens and fairways at Copper River Golf Course and non-food crops at farms on the southwest side.

"This water is used to put into about 1700 acres of infiltration ponds," said Assistant Director of Public Utilities Steve Hogg. "It' s percolated back into groundwater underneath the ponds and then about a third of that is pumped out and put into local irrigation canals for agricultural irrigation,"

Now there's a new push to increase the use of recycled water at places like parks, schools and cemeteries all over town.

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