Return of recycled water

Stories planted this morning in the Times, Daily News and Wall Street Journal unveil Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's billion-dollar agenda to re-invent Los Angeles' relationship to water. Villaraigosa and DWP chief H. David Nahai will do the formal announcing at 10 am in the Valley's Japanese garden. The stories focus mostly on the "toilet-to-tap" aspect of using some of the river of treated wastewater that is dumped in the ocean every day, but the plan also includes a huge investment in new pipes and drought-like enforcement (with higher fines) of rules about hosing off driveways and over-watering of lawns. For the first time, L.A. would also get semi-serious about collecting rainwater for replenishment of aquifers. The WSJ's story is the more informative, digging into the issues around use of recycled sewage water for drinking water and calling a new system in Orange County "the largest and most high-tech in the world." We'll see how it flies here, where the "toilet-to-tap" moniker became a favorite of the Daily News before the last effort became too political and was abandoned during the Valley secession drive.