Through the cooperation of five local water agencies, the Baker Water Treatment Plant serves 28.1 million gallons a day.
2017
Lake Forest
28.1 million gallons of drinking water
Irvine Ranch Water District
At the Baker plant, we use microfiltration and ultraviolet technology to produce enough pure, appealing drinking water to serve more than 63,000 homes a day. Designed for sustainability, the plant is powered in part by renewable energy. It minimizes waste with on-site water recycling. By treating both local and imported water here at home, we safeguard customers from supply interruptions.
At the Baker Water Treatment Plant, quality, affordability, and reliability are baked in. And partnership is the main ingredient.
Before the plant opened, drinking water for most communities in southern O.C came from many miles away.
We needed diverse, low-cost, locally treated sources.
A filtration facility sat on a site in Lake Forest, shuttered and outdated. But five local water districts saw potential. Working together, with economies of scale, they knew they could treat water there and serve it to customers more cheaply than buying imported treated water. They teamed up and built a new plant, tapping into existing pipelines.
In pressurized microfiltration, water is pushed through fibers narrow enough to filter out 0.1-micron pathogens and particles. The plant is equipped with 1,624 of these 7-foot modules, containing 11 million hollow fibers.
Wash water from microfiltration is captured in these inclined plate settlers, where solids settle out. Once clarified, the water is recycled back through the treatment process. 98% of water that enters this plant makes it back out to customers.
The facility has two ultraviolet disinfection units with 72 lamps each, for 100% redundancy. The ultraviolet light deactivates any remaining pathogens before the water goes through final disinfection in the plant’s chlorine contact basin.
Get more information about the collaboration behind the Baker Water Treatment Plant, and see its Environmental Impact Report (updated annually).
The Baker plant treats local rainwater, plus raw imported Colorado River water purchased from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
IRWD stores the rain in Irvine Lake. Metropolitan stores the river water in Lake Mathews. Water flows through pipelines from the lakes to the Baker plant, where it is purified. From there, the water is piped to the five partner agencies.
