There is a significant source of water for up to 8 million Californians.

Heal the Ocean is proud to release The Inventory of Municipal Wastewater Discharges to California Coastal Water Bodies, an online interactive studythat documents the 417 billion gallons of treated municipal wastewater discharged at fifty-seven coastal locations in the 2015 calendar year.

The study, led by project manager James Hawkins, MPP, involved a multiyear effort to collect, review, and analyze publicly available data to determine the total volume of treated municipal effluent discharged to California’s coastal water bodies. Heal the Ocean estimates that the reuse of 85 percent of these coastal discharges could meet almost 30 percent of water needs for California’s coastal cities.

In the spirit of transparency and to help advance the state's water policy efforts, Heal the Ocean is releasing its database of dischargers and flow data that forms the basis of the study.

To view the online interactive study, click here.
For a printer-friendly PDF, click here.