Recycled water approved at Copper Sky lake

The Maricopa City Council approved a recycled water-use agreement Tuesday evening for the lake at Copper Sky Regional Park.

The agreement would allow Global Water Resources to supply recycled water used in the park’s lake via the company’s water main. Jon Corwin, vice president and general manager of GWR, said actions like this help preserve a precious resource.

“Most of the lakes at the city of Maricopa take that recycled water back and use it for irrigation purposes,” Corwin said. “The great thing about that is it helps us to reuse the water, which offsets ground water that we would (otherwise) have to pump out of the ground.”

Recycled or reclaimed water is wastewater treated to be redistributed to the community for various uses. The lake at Copper Sky, for example, uses class A-plus recycled water, which Corwin said is the highest regulated standard in Arizona.

Class A-plus water is typically used with activities such as agricultural and residential irrigation, fire-sprinkler systems and toilet flushing, according to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. This water, however, is not treated for drinking-water standards.

In 2022, GWR supplied 1.2 billion gallons of class A-plus recycled water to the city, according to Corwin.