ARC – recycled water tasting

One of our projects in Los Angeles is a visitor center for the #WRD – the Water Replenishment Board that is responsible for providing and controlling supply of our ground water. WRD has been working on a facility known as #ARC which is another step towards making Los Angeles water independent.

The WRD Board of Directors established the Water Independence Now (#WIN) initiative to end the District’s reliance on imported water for groundwater replenishment. WIN comprises a suite of projects including expansions to existing water treatment facilities, spreading operations, and stormwater capture facilities. The largest component of the WIN program is the Albert Robles Center for Water Recycling & Environmental Learning (formerly known as the Groundwater Reliability Improvement Project (GRIP)). The purpose of the Albert Robles Center is to fully eliminate the current demand for imported water by producing 21,000 acre feet annually from local alternative sources to replenish the Central Basin.

The ARC facility takes recycled water, and uses further advanced recycling technology to produce water that is well beyond drinking standard, which is then stored and injected into the aquifers underneath Los Angeles, where it starts its slow travel towards the coast and provides future drinking water for the 43 cities that under WRD’s auspices.

The facility has a visitor center that explains WRD’s work, and in particular the function of the ARC project – and once visitors have seen and experienced the various exhibits they get to see the production facility, and that tour culminates in a visit to the ‘tasting room’.

In order to create something special for the room, we looked at what consumers think of as the essence of their water supply – not the magical presence of drinking water, but rather the pipework that delivers water to their homes. We took that as an inspiration to create a sculpture for the tasting room, which is based on the ubiquitous copper pipe – and here is a quick preview of the work we have been doing.

Four 4′ circular glass surfaces will be set into the sculpture to provide not only a location where visitors can try the recycled water, but also a venue for WRD and anyone who wants to use the facility for corporate events. This image shows the sculpture under construction at Mad Systems. More images of the installed sculpture later – but this is the sculpture under development, and almost ready for transport to the site where it will be installed for the December 2019 opening.

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