Beginning in 2016, when Montecito was under rationing and a group of wealthy residents started funding a shakeup of the water board, the challengers running for office pledged to bring water recycling to the community in the drought.
Over three election cycles — in 2016, 2018 and 2020 — running twice as “Your Water Security Team,” candidates promised “greater use of recycled wastewater for landscaping” and vowed to end or update Montecito’s disposal of treated wastewater through an ocean pipeline, a practice widely in use throughout the South Coast.
Riding a voter backlash against water rationing during the drought, and backed by $256,000 in donations, they swept nine of 10 seats on the water and sanitary district boards.
Yet today, recycled water is still not on the drawing board in the affluent community of one-acre lots, large estates and luxury golf courses.
“If I could start it tomorrow, I would, but 2023 would be a reasonable timeframe,” said Floyd Wicks, a water board member who won election in 2016 and re-election in 2020. Back in 2016, his campaign fliers read, “What does the International Space Station have that the Montecito Water District does not? The answer is recycled water.”
Now, the Montecito water and sanitary districts are splitting the $440,000 cost of a water recycling study — the second such study in four years — to find out whether their neighbors could help them treat the community’s wastewater supply so that it can be reused for irrigation or for drinking. They are exploring whether Montecito could inject its treated wastewater into the groundwater basin that underlies the Carpinteria Valley, or deliver it directly into Santa Barbara’s drinking water reservoirs. Both options would be years away.
The Montecito boards have applied for up to $150,000 in state funding to cover part of the cost of the new study, which is being conducted by Carollo Engineers, a national firm with headquarters in Walnut Creek. It is expected to be made public by the end of this year.
Shelving “Purple Pipe”
At 270 gallons of water per person per day, the residential water use in the Montecito Water District, encompassing a population of 11,800 people in Montecito, Summerland and Toro Canyon, is among the highest in the state. Only about 15% of the district’s water supply is used indoors and winds up in the sewers; 85% goes on lawns and landscaping and can’t be recycled.
Historically, because of concerns about the cost of recycling and potential impacts on public health, the district never followed the example of Santa Barbara or the Goleta Valley, larger communities that began recycling non-potable water through “purple pipes” to parks and golf courses more than 25 years ago.
In 2018, a $150,000 study on recycled water for the Montecito Water District recommended that the community spend $16 million on a plant that could treat wastewater to a non-potable standard for irrigation and distribute it through purple pipes to big commercial water customers, including the Birnam Wood Golf Club, the Valley Club and the Santa Barbara Cemetery.
In 2019, taking the initiative, the former sanitary district board purchased a $140,000 expandable water recycling plant — the first in Montecito — and planned to start irrigating test plots on the Santa Barbara Cemetery lawn, directly across Channel Drive from district headquarters.
But after the 2020 election, the new sanitary district board majority shut down the recycling plant; only Director Gary Fuller, who ran against the Water Security Team, voted to keep it running. Now, two years later, the pilot project has been reactivated — not to water the cemetery, but to provide water quality data for the new recycling study.
At a joint committee meeting in January, Woody Barrett, vice president of the sanitary district board, asked whether the water district would share the capital cost of the pilot plant. Ken Coates, the water board vice president, said no: “The water district opposed that project. The sanitary district went ahead with it despite our opposition, so, sorry, you gotta eat that cost.”
“Big Hurdles” to Potential Partnership with Carpinteria
The two boards are now looking into whether Montecito could ship its wastewater to the Carpinteria Valley through a pipeline on the north side of Highway 101. The treated wastewater would be injected into the valley’s large groundwater basin. There, it would undergo months of natural filtration before it was delivered back to Montecito as drinking water. The groundwater injection of recycled water is known as “indirect potable reuse.”
Montecito’s underground basins have no useful storage space; they are small, and the water district shares them with 1,500 private wells.
“The trick is to find storage, if we can, on this side of the Santa Ynez Mountains,” said water board President Tobe Plough, who won election alongside Wicks in 2016 and 2020. “It provides a more reliable source of water.”
Carpinteria’s water and sanitary districts are midway through the design of a $35 million advanced water treatment plant; it could be in operation by the end of 2025. But officials say more studies are needed to determine whether there’s enough capacity in the valley’s underground basin to accommodate Montecito’s recycled water.
“This has really been Montecito crafting all these ideas,” said Craig Murray, general manager of the Carpinteria Sanitary District. “We want to help where we can, but some of our conversations have identified what we see as big hurdles. From our vantage, it doesn’t appear to be a real project, in terms of the cost.”
A “Hybrid Solution” with Santa Barbara?
Alternatively, Montecito is looking into whether to ship its wastewater to Santa Barbara for treatment to non-potable standards and get the recycled water back through purple pipe for irrigation.
The Montecito Water District is already in a 50-year partnership with the city for a $33 million supply of city water. Years from now, or so the thinking goes, Santa Barbara could treat Montecito’s wastewater to drinking water standards and deliver it directly into city reservoirs. But the state has yet to approve this system of water recycling, called “direct potable reuse”; Santa Barbara officials say it may not be available until 2035.
“That is still kind of the timeline,” said Joshua Haggmark, the city’s water resources manager. “The more the state gets into it, the more issues and challenges they come across.”
Montecito officials concede that some kind of purple pipe system could wind up as the best option for Montecito for now, with or without Santa Barbara. In combination with future direct potable reuse, they say, this would be a “hybrid solution.”
“We might be able to do a shorter-term project with longer-term goals in mind,” said Nick Turner, general manager of the water district.
Hillary Hauser, executive director of Heal the Ocean, an environmental group that advocates for widespread use of recycled water, has long favored treating wastewater to non-potable standards at the Montecito Sanitary District for use at the cemetery and the Biltmore hotel.
“They are going in circles with an immense amount of money spent on studies, making a big push for potable recycled water,” she said. “Waiting for direct potable reuse is like ‘Waiting for Godot.’ There’s nothing wrong with purple pipes if you’re saving potable water by using non-potable water on your grass and your bushes and palms. They could have done this a long time ago.”
— Melinda Burns is an investigative journalist with 40 years of experience covering immigration, water, science and the environment. As a community service, she offers her reports to multiple local publications, at the same time, for free.