Dos Palos will have more reliable water source when water treatment plant is replaced
Dos Palos residents will have a more reliable water source when its failing water treatment facility is replaced next year, thanks to a $45 million state grant.
The State Water Resources Control Board announced last Monday that a new plant with two filtration systems will treat water piped in from the California Aqueduct, which is more than 20 miles away. The plant will treat approximately 4 million gallons of surface water per day.
“It’s good news that Dos Palos is getting underway with construction of such a big project to serve safe water to such a big population,” said Chad Fischer, section supervising engineer with the state-run Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER) program.
Crews have already broken ground, and construction is expected to be complete by December 2025.
The program, established in 2019, has helped almost 53,000 Merced County residents. It has provided $59 million for 18 projects. However, 10 water systems in the county – including the one in Dos Palos – fall into the “failing” category.
Joe Karkoski, head of the financial assistance division of the State Water Resources Control Board, said that sites considered “failing” are primarily on there because there’s some maximum contaminant limit or some sort of violation. Dos Palos in particular has had multiple water outages and regularly exceeds disinfection byproduct maximum contaminant levels, deeming it “failing”.
The Dos Palos plant, built in 1969, has not seen any significant upgrades. As recently as 2020, residents have lost access to potable water for three days when filtration systems became clogged with algae and shut down.
Fischer explained that the state water board is assisting all those “failing” systems in a multitude of ways. Assistance can vary from technical assistance, helping with governance issues, or financial assistance, said Karkoski.
“All of these systems are in a different sort of stage of that process, you know. As long as we have funding and if they’re ready, we’ll go ahead and fund their construction project,” Karkoski said.
The Human Right to Water law, signed in 2012 by former Gov. Jerry Brown, declared that “every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes.”
The state water board established the SAFER drinking water program in 2019 after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 200, providing the legal structure and process for funding safe drinking water solutions for disadvantaged communities in California.
“This project would not have happened without the grant from the State Water Board’s SAFER program,” said Dos Palos City Manager Dewayne Jones in a press release. “When completed, the facility will benefit our community for generations, providing confidence in the security of our homes and protecting the health of our entire town with a reliable and resilient source of water.”
Solar panels are included in the plant’s design to reduce operational costs. It includes space for a third filtration system that could treat an additional 2 million gallons per day.
