Once introduced, reclaimed water is monitored, blended with other water underground, and months or years later, treated again, when it is pumped from the ground to be used as drinking water. Increasingly more restrictions must be put on upstream users to greatly reduce their degradation of the water, but changing the habits of industries, towns, farmers, foresters, citizens who wash cars, water lawns, etc. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that reclaimed water is the cleanest water being introduced into the environment for reuse. When the Sierra Nevada snow pack is low, there is not much water to export to urban centers or to farms. Those communities who have local sources of water are in the best position to maintain near normal conditions for their residents.
Reclaimed water is a local source.
It can be used to substitute for imported or pumped groundwater. It can be used to replenish groundwater basins and to keep them filled. A great deal of public and local taxpayer money goes into treating wastewater to secondary levels and then disposing it somewhere, usually into streams, bays, or the ocean. The East Valley Water Recycling Project in Los Angeles is scheduled this year to begin delivering water to spreading grounds in Los Angeles, which will over five years filter into the City's groundwater basins. The reason was simple.