Overview of California Department of Public Health Draft Groundwater Recharge Regulations

Planned indirect potable reuse (IPR) via the augmentation of groundwater supplies has been practiced in California since 1962. The first regulations to address IPR by groundwater recharge were adopted in 1978 for surface spreading projects. They included general requirements for groundwater recharge of domestic water supply aquifers by surface spreading. The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) embarked on drafting comprehensive groundwater recharge regulations for both surface spreading and injection projects several years ago and, although the draft regulations have gone through several iterations in the last decade, they have yet to be finalized and adopted. The most recent draft groundwater recharge regulations were released by CDPH on August 5, 2008. CDPH recently prepared a revised internal working draft of the recharge regulations on June 14, 2011 that reflects CDPH's current thinking on the regulation of groundwater recharge with recycled water. This new draft regulation, which is summarized in this paper, includes some significant revisions to the previous version of the draft regulation.