Building a reliable, sustainable water supply for the future!

Water banking is a water resource management strategy that is used to improve water supply reliability. This is accomplished by capturing low cost water for underground storage during wet periods and recovering this water for later use and importation into the AVEK service area during dry periods or emergencies

Facts

• AVEK was visionary and innovative in being the first water supplier in the Antelope Valley to embark on a banking project
• To date, AVEK has recharged over 138,000 Acre Feet of imported water into their banking sites
• AVEK became a regional leader in mastering the geo-purification process, nature’s water filter system
• A regional leader in water banking, AVEK joined the city of Palmdale, Los Angeles County Waterworks Districts and Palmdale Water District in developing the Upper Amargosa Creek Flood Control, Recharge and Habitat Restoration Project     
• AVEK maintains 3 water storage projects:

Key Benefits

•Offering a reliable water supply, banking provides significant cost-savings and security during drought or dry periods, averting rate increases and supply fees that can be 400% above normal.

•Storage projects provide water banking partners with long-tern access to dedicated recharge and recovery capacity.

•Surplus water can be exchanged, generating revenue for the Agency to reduce taxes and water rates to our customers.

•AVEK consistently meets standards of excellence, as in 2017 when the Agency delivered 52,000 acre-feet of water to customers, a year when it stored 71,000 acre-feet of excess supplies

Geopurification 

•Aside from serving as storage facilities, AVEK’s banks function as a treatment process that utilizes geo-purification, bringing Trihalomethanes, or THMs, to record low levels·        

•For customers, geo-purification treatment that lowers Trihalomethanes equates to safer and healthier drinking water

•Geo-purification uses fewer chemicals, relying on the cleansing process that occurs when water percolates to the aquifer through the soils

•Geo-purification is a cost-effective and efficient means of treating imported surface water delivered to AVEK via the California Aqueduct

•Customers at the farthest reaches of AVEK’s distribution system reap the greatest benefit because they see the most dramatic change in THM levels, up to an 85% reduction