Getting recycled water to points of use requires pipelines or tanker trucks. The MWMC will have a partner-accessible recycled water fill station to initially bring recycled water to users. With enough demand and the right locations, pipelines to convey recycled water to users may be warranted in the future. The MWMC installed pipelines in 2011 to convey up to 10 million gallons per day of recycled water to industrial partners to the north of Randy Pape Beltline and potentially across the Willamette River. Additional buildout of pipelines can connect the MWMC to recycled water users from downtown to the Northwest Expressway corridor 77.

All recycled water uses are registered with the Oregon Water Resources Department under permit from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The MWMC’s Recycled Water Use Plan provides guidance for all of our potential recycled water uses, including the practices to be shared with our partners for ensuring appropriate training and awareness measures are followed (such as “Recycled Water – Not for Drinking” placards at spigots). Class A recycled water is approved for virtually every use that does not require drinking-quality water. This can include lawn watering, fountains and water features, car washing, laundry, fire suppression, food crop irrigation, and many other uses.

Recycled water has been used safely and reliably across the nation for many decades. From our nation’s “salad bowl” in California’s Salinas Valley, to San Antonio, Texas’s River Walk, and rapidly growing adoption for drinking water supplies in the southwest, recycled water has proven to be a safe, trusted, and reliable asset for our industries, environment, and communities.

The MWMC has irrigated landscaping within the fence line of our treatment plant with recycled water since the 1980s. To ensure we provide consistently reliable, high-quality recycled water for the community, our new Class A facilities will add filtration and ultraviolet light disinfection, as well as nearly one million gallons of storage to meet demands as needed. This will allow the MWMC to expand irrigation with recycled water to our publicly-accessible landscaping along the shared use path adjacent to the treatment plant, as well as begin sharing this resource with our community partners.