Future of SoCal water considered in Ontario

ONTARIO - Purple pipe could be one answer.

We already have as much water we're going to get, but California's population will keep exploding.

Roughly 800 elected officials, developers and others spent the day Thursday at a conference discussing how the growing region can keep faucets from going dry when water supplies may actually diminish.

Conservation and recycling will be key to keeping millions of new residents from going thirsty.

Expanding the use of recycled water into homes would allow existing supplies to go much further.

John Young, president of Young Homes and the Building Industry Association of Southern California, talked to one developer who is already installing purple pipe in new homes on the expectation that it will one day become mandatory.

Pipe that carries highly treated wastewater is colored purple and could be used for watering landscape and filling toilets.

Installing a dual plumbing system doesn't add much to the cost if it's done when a house is being built.

Australia, which like the western United States is in the middle of a fierce drought, is aggressively recycling water, including building homes that have such dual plumbing, said

Mark Gray, director of environmental affairs for the Building Industry Association.

Rainwater is also captured and storm runoff is directed into areas where it can percolate back into the groundwater, he said.

Doing that here means policymakers, especially counties and cities, must adopt regulations so projects are designed to capture and use every possible drop of water, most panelists agreed.

"Tell us what to do. Give us meaningful advice," said Randall Lewis, executive vice president of Lewis Operating Co., one of the region's most active developers.

He called for a broad education campaign aimed at both the public and government officials to encourage policies for using water more efficiently.

About 60 percent of domestic potable water is used to water lawns and irrigate landscaping.

That has to change, said Susan Lien Longville, director of the Water Resources Institute at Cal State San Bernardino.

"A growing water source is all the people moving here. They all produce waste water," she said.

That water can be treated and used for most purposes other than drinking, she said.

County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, who helped organize the conference, pledged to work on the issues discussed.

Morongo Valley already has incentives in place for installing gray water systems, which puts water from sinks and showers into a tank for use in irrigation, said Mike Reynolds, a contractor and president of the Morongo Basin chapter of the Building Industry Association.