Santa Monica's $77.5 Million Water Project Just Earned Some Major Recognition

SANTA MONICA, CA — A $77.5 million project designed to make Santa Monica less dependent on imported drinking water has earned national recognition for its environmental performance, highlighting improvements that allow the city to produce more water while using less energy and fewer chemicals.

The Olympic Well Field Restoration and Arcadia Water Treatment Plant Expansion received an Excellence in Sustainability award and an Award of Merit in the water/environment category as part of Engineering News-Record's 2026 West Best Projects awards.

The construction industry publication highlighted the project in a report published Monday, detailing how the upgrades have improved Santa Monica's drinking-water production while reducing waste and operating costs.

Completed in August 2025, the project included two new groundwater production wells, an advanced treatment facility and improvements to the existing Arcadia Water Treatment Plant. One of its most significant achievements is a roughly 10 percent increase in drinking-water production at the Arcadia plant, achieved through improvements to its reverse-osmosis treatment system rather than additional groundwater extraction.

The upgraded technology periodically reverses the direction of water flowing through treatment membranes, helping prevent mineral buildup and allowing more water to be recovered during the purification process. As a result, the system now recovers more than 90 percent of the water entering the reverse-osmosis process, compared with approximately 80 percent previously.

That improvement represents nearly 1,200 additional acre-feet of water annually — equivalent to approximately 391 million gallons, according to to Engineering News-Record. The upgrades have also reduced energy consumption per unit of water treated by approximately 10 percent, while changes to the cleaning process are expected to save around $150,000 annually. Reduced sulfuric acid use is expected to save another $100,000.

The project also increased the city's groundwater treatment capacity from 10 million gallons per day to 13 million gallons per day. Its new advanced treatment facility uses ultraviolet light, hydrogen peroxide and granular activated carbon to treat groundwater affected by historic industrial contamination.

Water treatment technology company ROTEC, which supplied the flow-reversal reverse-osmosis technology, has also highlighted the project's sustainability recognition. The improvements form part of Santa Monica's broader effort to develop a more reliable local drinking-water supply and reduce its dependence on imported water.

According to the project team, the investment will help the city eventually obtain as much as 70 percent of its drinking water from local sources, although that figure represents a goal rather than a level of independence already achieved. The recognition underscores how the city's investment in water infrastructure is intended to deliver long-term environmental and financial benefits, particularly as Southern California continues to face pressure on its water supplies.