Retirement community celebrates milestone in recycled water project
Golf course, greenbelt to use reclaimed H2O
By Eliav Appelbaum eliav@theacorn.com

Leisure Village is about halfway finished with a water conservation project that is expected to save the community around 180 million gallons of drinking water per year.

Camrosa and Calleguas Municipal water districts and Leisure Village have joined forces by retrofitting the neighborhood's pipes and water system to use recycled water from Camrosa's Water Reclamation Facility. Half of Leisure Village's 186-acre greenbelt and the front nine holes of the community's 18hole golf course now use recycled water.

Irrigating the greenbelt consumes 70-percent of all water used in Leisure Village.

"We were using potable water to irrigate the greenbelt, and from a conservation standpoint that's ludicrous," said Bob Scheaffer, Leisure Village general manager.

The $2.3-million project, which began in the summer of 2006, is expected to be completed within two years. The recycled water system should pay for itself within five to seven years, according to Frank Royer, general manager for Camrosa Water District.

Although the second of four phases has been complete for two months, the active senior community will celebrate the milestone today with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11:30 a.m. at the first tee box of the Leisure Village Golf Course.

"Eventually it's really going to improve the quality of life," said Marge Lorraine, resident and secretary for the Leisure Village board of directors. "Our water bills will go down, and we won't use potable water for landscaping. It's a good thing ecologically, and it's a good thing economically."

With Southern California still in a drought and the price of potable water rising, water conservation has become more and more of a necessity. According to Royer, the cost of imported potable water could rise 50 percent in the next five years.

In a measure of good faith, Camrosa began the first phase by paying for the 500 feet of piping leading into Leisure Village. Upon completion, there will be approximately 13,550 feet of pipes, 15,000 feet including laterals off the mainline that connect into sprinkler valves. For safety precautions, 2,140 backflow devices have been installed.

The water used at Leisure Village is recycled at the Hill Canyon Treatment Plant in Thousand Oaks before being discharged into Conejo Creek. Camrosa buys the water in Conejo Creek from the city of Thousand Oaks, where it's diverted at Highway 101 and the base of the Conejo Grade.

Bob Ellis, past president of the Leisure Village board of directors, put together a sevenminute video titled "Waste Not" that informed residents about the benefits and potential concerns of using recycled water.

Ellis credited Royer, former Camrosa general manager Richard Hajas and Calleguas general manager Don Kendall for being "visionaries" with the project.

"They didn't look at today but 15 and 20 years out as far as what we're going to need," said Ellis, who has lived in Leisure Village for about six years. "They are extremely forward-thinking. . . . This is a huge win for everybody involved."