Orange County offers model for places without enough water

(AP) — Orange County's natural water supplies come from just three sources: limited rain, a single unreliable river and aquifers.

[...] utilities must mix a sort of waterworks cocktail that includes importing snowmelt from distant mountains, making toilet water tap-worthy and capturing storm runoff.

In a recent survey by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 40 of 50 state water managers said they anticipate some supply shortages over the next decade.

The annual surplus is so great that it could cover the continental U.S. with water more than 2 feet deep, but there is little political appetite or funding to expand the kind of water storage and distribution systems that allowed the growth and agricultural boom in the West.

Periodically, someone suggests building a pipeline to supply California's thirsty cities with water from rural, wetter regions.

Officials in Kansas, where the Ogallala aquifer has dropped more than 100 feet in some places, floated the idea of building a 360-mile canal and 15 pumping stations to move Missouri River water across the state to irrigate fields in the state's southwest.

Like the rest of Southern California, Orange County receives huge quantities of water imported from the Sierra Nevada and Rocky mountains through a vast system of canals.

Treated sewage from a sanitation plant next door is filtered, chemically doctored, forced through tiny holes that screen out nearly everything but water molecules, then zapped with ultraviolet light.

Anthony recalls the massive campaign that helped the public get over the ick factor that sunk a "toilet-to-tap" project in San Diego a generation ago.