Las Virgenes details advanced water purification facility near Agoura Road; oak mitigation planned

Las Virgenes Municipal Water District staff presented an update on the Pure Water project and an advanced water purification facility (AWPF) proposed adjacent to Agoura Road.

Engineering program manager Oliver Slossa described the facility's role in reusing recycled water produced at the Tapia Water Reclamation Facility: the AWPF would be capable of treating "up to 7 and a half million gallons per day" of product water, which would be detained in Las Virgenes Reservoir and then treated again at the Westlake Filtration Plant before distribution as potable water.

Slossa described pipeline work that will accompany the project: a reverse-osmosis concentrate pipeline that must tie into a regional salinity-management pipeline, plus source, purified and small residuals lines. In different parts of the presentation staff cited "about 14 miles" for the RO concentrate route and said the overall project requires "a little over 20 miles" of pipeline; staff characterized that as the combined alignment needed to manage raw, purified and residuals flows.

On schedule, staff said they have completed 60% design and are negotiating a guaranteed maximum price for phase 2 (detailed design and construction). Slossa said the team anticipates breaking ground in April, with roughly two years of major construction and additional testing and certification into 2030.

Slossa also outlined the project's oak-tree and rare-plant mitigation: trees that cannot be avoided will be replaced at a 4-to-1 ratio, with more than 140 replacement trees planned; initial removal work is expected within the next few months and is being timed to avoid bird nesting and bat roosting. He said staff plans replantings in late 2026 and a five-year establishment period with irrigation and monitoring.

Council members asked about resilience and renewable energy. Council member Deborah Klein Lopez asked whether the facility would include solar panels and battery backup because the site is in a high fire-hazard zone and could be affected by public-safety power shutoffs. Slossa said the facility will include limited on-site generation to keep key processes running and to enable orderly shutdowns during outages; he added that the roof will be built solar-ready but that panels and batteries are not part of initial construction and will be considered near the end of the project as technology improves.

Slossa said staff are coordinating with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and city staff on mitigation and site design and that early landscaping and planting plans are under contract. He invited council questions and noted the project uses some existing Las Virgenes infrastructure to reduce footprint and costs.