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Chino Hills officials say new 1,2,3‑TCP treatment plant near completion; startup delayed by state meter requirement
Summary
City staff said the 1,2,3‑TCP treatment plant on Eucalyptus has reached substantial construction completion, will treat other contaminants including PFOS/PFOA, and requires a metering/blending station and final state sign‑off before going online.
Chino Hills officials told the City Council on June 10 that construction of a new water treatment plant to remove the contaminant 1,2,3‑TCP from local groundwater is substantially complete, but the city must build a metering station and receive a state operating permit before the facility can begin delivering treated water.
Utilities Manager Mark Wiley said the plant was built after the state lowered the maximum contaminant level for 1,2,3‑TCP, forcing the city to take several wells offline. "When this plant is fully operational we suspect we'll get about 2,000 gallons a minute out of it or about 3,000,000 gallons a day, right around there," Wiley told the council. He said returning the wells to service will reduce reliance on imported water and increase supply redundancy.
Senior Engineer Faye Rama and construction manager Katie Squire of Boutier Engineering led a photo tour and technical update. Rama said the construction contract was awarded in October 2022 and the project encountered a December delay after an Edison utility line was discovered under the site; nevertheless, she said substantial completion is anticipated in June 2025 and only operator training and system testing remain. Rama said the city is working with the State Water Resources Control Board's Division of Drinking Water on an operations and maintenance and monitoring plan and that the state has requested a metering station to blend plant output with distribution water to meet constituent limits. "The meter station... came at us in the eleventh hour of being done," she said. "We thought we were gonna fire this thing up here in June, but it didn't work out."
On contaminants, Wiley and staff confirmed the plant uses granulated activated carbon (GAC) media and that the treatment is expected to remove related per‑ and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). "We are pretty confident that the granulated activated carbon will take that out," Wiley said, referring to PFOS and PFOA.
Council members asked about operating costs, resilience during Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), and payback from reduced water purchases. Rama presented a project budget and cost summary showing an approved project budget of about $23,000,000, with approximately $15,600,000 for the construction contract and about $3,600,000 for consultant and engineering services. City staff said total expenditures to date are just over $20,000,000 and that ongoing operations and maintenance are expected to cost roughly $710,000 annually once the plant is online. On payback through avoided potable water purchases, staff estimated roughly $1,000,000 per year in savings as a back‑of‑the‑envelope figure.
Council members also asked about backup power for pumps during PSPS events; staff confirmed a generator is installed at the site and the pumps may run during outages.
Next steps listed by staff include finalizing the operations and maintenance monitoring plan with the state, constructing the metering/blending station, completing operator training, and receiving the state operational permit. The council did not take any formal vote on the presentation.
The plant site is on Eucalyptus near Boys Republic. Staff encouraged council members and residents to visit the plant once final commissioning is complete.
