The City of Santa Barbara’s Cater Water Treatment Plant is being upgraded
in response to stricter federal drinking water regulations. The $20 million ozone water treatment project is about 80 percent complete. The work should be completed by the end of January.
Ozone will replace chlorine in the pre-treatment of water at the plant. Besides meeting stricter federal regulations the city’s water taste should also improve. Ozone is finding increasing use by municipalities to meet increasingly stringent regulations for both pathogen control as well as a reduction in disinfection byproducts that can be associated with teh use of chlorine, especially at the pretreatment stage of the process.