Free Water in Fresno, if You Can Haul It Yourself

When you live in a hot part of California and can only water your garden on certain days during the drought, you may have to make some hard choices about letting trees or shrubs die. What if there was a no-guilt, free water source you could use anytime, without the water cops coming after you? People in parched Fresno have a new option starting Wednesday. They can lug filtered water home from the sewage plant.

It’s pretty simple, really. It looks like a do-it-yourself car wash. Residents can get a special key card to access a side gate to the wastewater treatment plant and pull up in their trucks to a stall with a hose.

Stephen Hogg, who heads up the plant, shows me around as they’re getting ready for the first customers.

"This water cannot be used for drinking, but can be used for essentially anything else, such as gardens, washing of vehicles, any non-consumable kinds of uses," Hogg explains.

The water is free to local residents who pay their sewer bills and fill out an application to get the treated wastewater. It doesn’t cost the city much, because it’s water they have to dump anyway. And even though it may sound gross to use sewage water, Hogg says the water, which comes from the groundwater disposal ponds where the plant stores treated water, is safe.

"It’s very clean, very safe," Hogg says. "It would technically meet any of the drinking water standards, but it's not a permitted facility, so we can't use it for consumption."

Many California cities are starting to think about recycled water for landscaping. Fresno doesn’t have its full “toilet-to-tap” system set up yet. So in the meantime they’re letting people come and haul up to 300 gallons a day. That weighs about 2,400 pounds, so people need a truck and a covered container clearly marked “non potable.”

"You can’t bring your garbage can or your plastic wading pool?" I ask.

"You can bring the garbage can if it has a lid!" Hogg laughs.

Other cities with wastewater filling stations include Dublin, Pleasanton, and Martinez. Fresno’s is a 20-minute drive out of town, so residents have to figure out if it’s worth the time, and the gas, to lug free water home.