SoCal self-reliance?

By the year 2022, Southern California is set to have the world’s biggest groundwater-treatment center—built over one of the United States’ largest Superfund pollution sites.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power plans to splash out $600 million to $800 million on two treatment plants in the San Fernando Basin that will “restore groundwater pumping of drinking water from scores of San Fernando Valley wells that the DWP began closing in the 1980s,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

DWP’s move is a significant departure from its habit of offsetting its diminishing reliance upon groundwater by importing water from Northern California and the eastern Sierra Nevadas.

“By 2035, we plan to reduce our purchases of imported water by half,” said James McDaniel, senior assistant general manager of DWP.

Construction is set to begin in five years.