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FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. — Water spilled out of a spigot, sparklingly clear, into a plastic cup. Just 45 minutes earlier, it was effluent, piped over from Orange County’s wastewater treatment plant next door. At a specialized plant, it then went through several stages of purification that left it cleaner than anything that flows out of a home faucet or comes in a brand-name bottle.
“It’s stripped down to the H, 2 and O,” said Mike Markus, the general manager of the county water district. He was not exaggerating. Without the minerals that give most cities’ supply a distinctive flavor, this water tastes of nothing.
As California scrambles for ways to cope with its crippling drought and the mandatory water restrictions imposed last month by Gov. Jerry Brown, an array of ideas that were long dismissed as too controversial, expensive or unpleasant are getting a second look. One is to conserve more water; another is to turn nearby and abundant sources of water, like the Pacific Ocean, into drinking water through desalination.
