Title: Water Recycling Program Could Help Drought-Stricken Communities 

Description: In some parts of the United States, growing populations and
prolonged droughts are straining water supplies. Large-scale water
recycling could offer these communities a solution to their shortages.
In a new report, we looked at the status of these efforts and their
challenges. We'll learn more from GAO's Cardell Johnson. 

Related work: GAO-26-107888, Freshwater Supply: Interior Should Continue
to Identify Improvements to the Large-Scale Water Recycling Program

Released: January 2026

{Music}

[Cardell Johnson:] Many communities, particularly out West, they're
turning to water recycling as a strategy for addressing water scarcity
issues.

[Holly Hobbs:] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for fact
based, nonpartisan news and information from the U.S. Government
Accountability Office. I'm your host, Holly Hobbs. In some parts of the
United States, growing populations and prolonged droughts are straining
water supplies. Large-scale water recycling could offer these
communities a solution to their shortages. In a new report, we looked at
the status of these efforts and their challenges. We'll learn more from
GAO's Cardell Johnson. Thanks for joining us.

[Cardell Johnson:] Thank you for inviting me.

[Holly Hobbs:] Cardell, maybe we can start from the top and you can tell
us a little bit about what is water recycling? How does it work?

[Cardell Johnson:] So simply put, water recycling is just taking water
that we've already used. Putting it through advanced treatment and
making it safe for us to use again. 
So, if I might visualize this for our audience, imagine that we have two
glasses of water in front of us. And in one glass of water, we're going
to put a couple of drops of black dye. That black dye represents
wastewater or dirty water. Now with water recycling advanced treatment,
that water is going to be cleaned until it becomes safe and clear as a
water that we drink every day.

[Holly Hobbs:] And why recycle water? Why does it matter? 

[Cardell Johnson:] Well, it matters a lot because many communities in
the country, particularly out west, are facing water scarcity. Water
supplies are becoming very limited, with population growth, with
drought, there is less water that is available in our natural sources,
like from the Colorado River. And so, water recycling is a strategy that
many communities are turning to really fight their water scarcity issue.

[Holly Hobbs:] Are there myths to water recycling?

[Cardell Johnson:] Yes. There are myths to water recycling. I think the
one myth that folks have is that when they are drinking water that has
been recycled, that it's coming straight from the toilet. That is not
the case. That water is put through advance treatment filtration where
it removes any sort of harmful chemicals and it is as safe as the
bottled water that you might buy from your local grocery store.

[Holly Hobbs:] So why do this? Why recycle water?

[Cardell Johnson:] The benefits is basically that it creates a new
supply of water. I like to think of it this way. We're creating an extra
reservoir that never runs dry. And that is really important for the
communities that are facing water scarcity. 
Also, I think a benefit here is that in many communities, particularly
those out West, they're depending on sources like the Colorado River for
water. Well, if you live 400 miles away and you're getting your water
through the Colorado River, you have to import that. And that comes at a
cost. So if you can set up a water recycling center in your community,
you may have lower utility rates because you don't have to import that
water from 100 miles away. So, it also saves taxpayers' money.

[Holly Hobbs:] Are there any benefits to the community more broadly than
just, you know, a water supply or lower utilities? Is there any economic
impact?

[Cardell Johnson:] Absolutely. So, a lot of people when they think of
water recycling, the first thought that comes to mind is water for
drinking. And that's true. But also, there are economic benefits to
water recycling. So, think about housing construction or other, business
construction or farms. They need guaranteed fresh water supplies to be
able to operate.
So, if you don't have guaranteed fresh water supplies, that stalls those
projects, which potentially means that maybe communities are not getting
the housing that they need in time. Or businesses are not able to start
their business, when they'd like to. Or it might impact growth on a
farm.

[Holly Hobbs:] Do we have examples of where this is being done?

[Cardell Johnson:] In the United States, the most successful is out in
Orange County, California. They've been doing large scale water
recycling since 2008. Orange County's water recycling system produces
130 million gallons of purified water a day to about 2.5 million people.
And one of the important aspects of that is that they're relying less on
sources like the Colorado River, where they're hundreds of miles away.
And they used to import that water, which means water utility rates were
higher for folks there in Orange County.

[Holly Hobbs:] For our report, we specifically looked at the Department
of the Interior's water recycling grants program. What can you tell us
about that?

[Cardell Johnson:] So the Department of Interior has been doing a lot of
recycling since 1992. In the early days, it was focused more so on
smaller scale projects. So, projects that cost $50 million or less.
There was a need for projects to service larger communities. And so,
through the Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act, Congress appropriated
$450 million to Interior to stand up a new grant program that's focused
on large scale water recycling.

[Holly Hobbs:] It sounds like a good program with a lot of good
benefits. Are there challenges that Interior's faced in maybe doing this
more widespread or just doing it at all?

[Cardell Johnson:] So in our report we identified seven challenges. And
one of the challenges that was really important--because it led to a
delayed start in administering the grants or getting the grant money out
there--is that the infrastructure bill did not provide money for
feasibility studies. So, simply put, any time that you're going to
undergo a construction project, right, you have to go through a
feasibility study. The whole point of that is to identify the viability
of a project and make sure you identify the risk. And that's important
because we don't want to use taxpayer monies for projects that are not
going to work. And so the provisions in the infrastructure bill did not
allow Interior to use any money for feasibility studies. So many
communities did not know that this large-scale water recycling program
was coming.
And many communities, the five grantees who got the money, they were not
ready. So, they had to either develop feasibility studies or update
feasibility studies. And that took nearly up to 3 years to be able to
start getting the money out to those communities.

[Holly Hobbs:] Cardell, is there something we think the Department of
the Interior should do to address some of the challenges we highlight?

[Cardell Johnson:] So one of the things that we were encouraged by is
through our review, Interior was already cataloging a number of the
different challenges that they had in standing up and administering this
grant program. And so, what we encouraged them to do through our
recommendation is to take the lessons learned and to develop legislative
proposals.
If they're going to continue administering this program, they will
probably want to seek some legislative tweaks to make this a bit more
efficient. What we heard from the communities that we went to is that
communities really appreciated having this funding. It helped them to be
able to meet the demand for water in their communities.
But some of that sort of initial set up--like I mentioned earlier with
the feasibility studies, also thinking through the federal cost share of
that--those are things that really do need to be addressed so that they
can more efficiently execute, you know, these grants.

[Holly Hobbs:] And last question, what's the bottom line of this report?

[Cardell Johnson:] So the bottom line of this report is that many
communities in America, particularly out West, are facing water scarcity
and they're looking for new supplies of water. And so they're turning to
water recycling as a strategy for addressing water scarcity issues. And
the federal government can be a key resource for these communities. But
it's really important, when the government decides to invest in water
recycling programs, that it makes sure that it develops requirements
that are easy to understand and make the process as quick and efficient
to get that money out to the community so that it doesn't take years to
reap the benefits of the water recycling.

[Holly Hobbs:] Cardell, thanks for sharing your time and report with us. 

[Cardell Johnson:] Thank you for having me.

{Music}

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