Paso Robles gets $9.7 million to distribute recycled water to parks, vineyards

The city of Paso Robles has received a $9.73 million grant to build a recycled water distribution system.

The infrastructure project will allow Paso Robles to deliver more than 3,000 acre-feet per year of recycled water to the city’s east side, where it will be used to irrigate parks, golf courses, vineyards and common area landscaping in new housing developments, the city said Monday in a news release.

“This new source of irrigation water will offset pumping of groundwater and help alleviate the problem of declining groundwater elevations in the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin,” the city said in the release. “Recycled water will also help conserve the city’s valuable supplies of drinking water.”

According to the release, the funding will be used to construct a large pump station at the Paso Robles Wastewater Treatment Plant near the Salinas River, along with 4.5 miles of pipeline across the northern part of the city.

In addition, the city will build a 900,000-gallon concrete tank close to the eastern edge of city limits near Barney Schwartz Park, the release said.

Matt Thompson, the city’s newly appointed recycled water manager, said the recycled water infrastructure is “very important to the future of Paso Robles.”

“Recycled water will further diversify the city’s water supplies, help restore balance to our groundwater basin, and support continued economic prosperity,” Thompson said in the release. “Much like today’s city leaders look back at previous leaders and are grateful for their bold efforts to complete the Nacimiento Water Pipeline, I believe future generations will look back and be grateful our leaders had the foresight to complete this recycled water system.”

The Clean Water State Revolving Fund and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided the grant money through an agreement with the California State Water Resources Control Board, the release said.

With financing secured, the city hopes to have the recycled water project ready for bidding and construction by the end of the year.

The city will sell the recycled water to people who need it for irrigation, the release said, generating the revenue needed to back pay the cost of construction and operation and maintenance expenses.

Those prices will be driven by the cost of the recycled water infrastructure, the release said.

Blaine Reely, San Luis Obispo County director of groundwater sustainability, called the Paso Robles project is “fantastic news for the all the groundwater sustainability agencies in the basin.”

“This project represents the first significant source of supplemental water that irrigators can use to reduce their reliance on groundwater and allow us to move forward aggressively to bring the Paso Basin into a sustainable condition,” Reely said.

Part of the recycled water distribution system is already under construction, the release said.

The Paso Robles City Council previously awarded a $3.6 million contract to Mountain Cascade of Livermore to construct a 1,900-foot-long segment of pipeline under the Salinas River and up a steep hillside on the east side of the river.

That section of the project is slated to be completed by late spring 2024, the release said.

Construction of the Salinas River segment was made possible by a separate $3.5 million grant awarded to the city in 2022 by the California Department of Water Resources, with assistance from the San Luis Obispo County Groundwater Sustainability Office, the release said.