Toilet to tap returns

Los Angeles wastewater may soon become cleaner than a mountain spring. Dana Bartholomew in the Daily News.

But officials say a plan to spend $700 million to recycle sewage into drinking water rests on the future of rates being proposed today.

"One of our key strategies to becoming less reliant on imported water is to recycle water," said James Yannotta, assistant director of water resources for the Department of Water and Power. "Through `purple pipe' for industrial or commercial purposes, or groundwater replenishment to the point where it is essentially distilled.

"It is cleaner than any other water."