In response to growing demands for recycled water in the City and the wider region, the City of Manteca approved the Reclaimed Water Facilities Master Plan in early 2023. The Reclaimed Water Facilities Master Plan (RWFMP) lays out the groundwork for future beneficial infrastructure and evaluates the role that recycled water can play in creating a drought-proof water supply for the City.

The City of Manteca’s water supply comes from 15 groundwater wells, each with a limited capacity for production. Having another replenishable water source for irrigation and storage will help to benefit the environment and create a drought-proof water supply in Manteca.

“The City of Manteca is consistently looking for ways to better meet the community’s needs,” said Public Works Director Carl Brown. “Further commercial and residential developments are projected in the coming years, and recycled water can play an important role in diversifying the City’s water supply portfolio to sustain this growth.”

Recycled water is water that goes through a thorough treatment process to disinfect and turn it into high-quality water that can be used for many purposes, including irrigation for parks, schools and residential properties. Once treated, the recycled water is delivered through a set of pipes, separate from the delivery pipes that carry drinking water throughout the City.

The City of Manteca’s Wastewater Quality Control Facility (WQCF) already produces approximately 5.7 million gallons of disinfected, tertiary-treated water per day that is available for immediate reuse. A portion of the treated wastewater is currently used for agricultural irrigation, and a very small amount is used to fill water trucks for construction and dust control. The City of Manteca also implemented the residential recycled water program in September 2022 that offers free recycled water to residents to utilize for landscape irrigation.

In order to increase the use and benefits of recycled water in Manteca, the City is utilizing the RWFMP to plan the infrastructure that is needed to expand recycled water usage throughout the City, including distribution system pipelines and storage needed to accommodate peak recycled water demands.

With the additional infrastructure, the project will provide approximately 2,686 acre-feet per year of recycled water to irrigation customers throughout the City, including 643 acre-feet per year for landscape irrigation demands to serve future developments. The total cost of these facilities in Manteca is approximately $44.8 million, and the project will be implemented in four phases to divide this cost.

Once implemented, one of the many facilities that would benefit from this recycled water irrigation is the Municipal Golf Course, which currently uses groundwater for irrigation. The City contains about 660 acres of existing parks, school playing fields, golf courses and other irrigated green space that will be considered for recycled water irrigation instead of groundwater or potable water.

To learn more information on the City’s water efforts, visit: http://www.manteca.gov/water