Below is a summary of the primary issues surrounding the Glendale Water Supply Improvement Project:

• Water diverted flows into the Glendale Water Treatment Plant that has design capacity of 37.5 MGD (million gallons per day), which is not possible to capture.
• Operation of the treatment plant is critical for meeting spring, summer and fall water system customer demands for residential outdoor watering.
• Is called a conventional plant and incorporates state-of-the-art treatment including chemical addition, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, disinfection and treated water pumping into the system. Significant upgrades have been made to comply with state and federal drinking water standards
• Treated water from the plant is also used for blending purposes for groundwater wells, which exceed the present standard for arsenic.
• The existing diversion from the Truckee River consists of a rock, concrete rubble structure in the river. It is not designed to provide the flows necessary to operate the plant at its full design potential during normal river flows.
• Because of its nature, the diversion is not watertight and does not allow the full capture of the community’s water supplies when released by TMWA from its upstream reservoirs during drought conditions. This condition is severe when the only water in the river consists of the community drought reserves. The existing structure allows “loss of water” which should be captured and treated for community purposes.
• Because of the nature and inadequacy of the existing diversion structure, it has had to be rebuilt on numerous occasions following floods. During drought conditions TMWA has had to pump from the river and seal the existing diversion with plastic and sand bags, requiring the use of heavy equipment in the river.
• Because of its nature, the facility is considered unsafe for boaters and rafters.
• The west bank of the river in the vicinity of the structure has eroded resulting in the loss of riparian habitat.
• Improvement of the plant is critical to allow full use of the community’s surface water rights in the Truckee River, as well as its groundwater source, while being environmentaly sound.