Sanitary district outlines Carpinteria Advanced Purification project; council receives presentation
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Summary
The Carpinteria Sanitary District presented plans for a $61 million Advanced Water Purification plant on its wastewater site that would purify the community’s average dry‑weather flow and cut ocean discharge by roughly 85%. Council voted to receive and file the presentation.
The Carpinteria Sanitary District told the city council on Feb. 9 that construction on the Carpinteria Advanced Purification (CAP) Project will begin this spring after a $61,000,000 contract was awarded to Walsh Construction.
District representative Brian described CAP as a multi‑step advanced treatment and purification facility that will be built on the district’s wastewater treatment site and operated under a joint exercise of powers agreement with the local water district. “Our job … is to collect, treat, and discharge wastewater safely 24 hours a day, 7 days a week,” Brian said, describing the district’s role and noting the proposed purification facility will be a change from current operations.
The project will use a sequence of initial filtration, ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet advanced oxidation to produce highly purified water. Brian said the plant is designed to purify 100% of Carpinteria’s average dry‑weather flow and to reduce the volume of discharge to the ocean by about 85 percent, with a roughly 250,000‑gallon buried equalization tank and a new 12,000‑square‑foot process building. He said the water district will fund the majority of the project while the sanitary district will host the site and operate the facility on contract.
Council members asked technical questions about the quality and composition of the roughly 15 percent of influent that will be rejected by reverse osmosis. Brian said the mass of constituents discharged to the receiving water will be about the same or slightly lower than today and that pilot testing and regulator consultations indicate the reject stream will comply with permit standards. He also addressed concerns about pharmaceuticals and micro‑constituents, saying the district expects very high removal rates in RO and that the final UV/AOP step will destroy small remaining constituents.
Staff told council that construction is expected to last about three years and that the project will require extensive start‑up, commissioning and validation before water is delivered to the groundwater basin. The presentation noted opportunities for local employment and energy‑management features including solar and battery storage at the site.
A council member moved to receive and file the presentation; the motion was seconded and approved unanimously. The council did not take any action beyond formally receiving the update.
