The Carpinteria Valley Water District, the Carpinteria Sanitary District and community members broke ground Thursday on the Carpinteria Valley’s new recycled water project.
“What an exciting day for Carpinteria,” said Kelley Dyer, the Carpinteria Valley Water District’s general manager. “We’re here to break ground on an advanced purification project that represents the future of water in our community.”
The Carpinteria Advanced Purification Project (CAPP), a collaboration between Carpinteria’s water and sanitary districts, has been more than a decade in the making.
Construction should be completed in 2028.
Once built, it will provide 1.3 million gallons of purified water per day — which will cover 25% of the area’s water needs — by replenishing the valley’s groundwater basin with “purified recycled water that is available every year, regardless of weather,” Dyer said.
It will also help reduce the Carpinteria Valley’s reliance on outside water, which can be expensive and unreliable during drought periods, water district staff have said during board meetings.
The main 12,000-square-foot facility will be located at the Carpinteria Sanitary District’s 5351 Sixth St. campus.
The project’s groundwater injection wells and monitoring well clusters will be located along Meadow View Lane, Sterling Lane and at St. Joseph Church, while the 10-inch pipeline will stretch between Meadow View Lane and Sixth Street.
Debbie Murphy, the president of the Carpinteria Sanitary District Board, thanked all of the project’s supporters and asked them to remember the area’s droughts.
“I remember when my boys were… little, tiny guys, I would give them a bath in a 5-gallon bucket, because that’s all the water I was allowed,” she said. “…I am so glad that we have found a way to have more water, because it’s a beautiful thing.”
A handful of elected officials attended Thursday’s groundbreaking, including Carpinteria Mayor Natalia Alarcon, Carpinteria councilmembers Wade Nomura and Mónica Solórzano, and Santa Barbara County First District Supervisor Roy Lee, among others. (Lee, a Carpinterian, is a former Carpinteria councilmember.)
Alarcon encouraged community members to “be patient” with any construction impacts.
“I encourage you all to be patient with us, and we are so excited to see it move forward,” she said.
To help mitigate impacts, crews will put up sound-dampening walls, cap sound at property lines during nighttime work, and put mufflers on equipment, among other measures.
The $90.7-million project is funded by state and federal grants, a state loan, and rate increases for water district customers.
Staff said in April that they will continue to apply for additional funding to support the project.
