WHITTIER >> Half a million people rest eternally under 700 acres of Rose Hills Memorial Park, the largest cemetery in the United States. Just keeping the grass green — a business priority — once required 293 million gallons of potable water a year, as much used in several cities.
On Wednesday, the cemetery put an end to irrigating lawns with drinking water. Thanks to a change in state law prompted by the drought, Rose Hills will use 100 percent recycled water on its sprawling grounds and in decorative fountains by the end of the year, saving enough drinking water for 2,000 to 3,000 homes.
The all-recycling effort began 23 years ago, when the cemetery signed an agreement with the nearby Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts to bring waste water treated to advanced levels up the hill in a separate delivery system of “purple pipes.” In the last decade, the meandering cemetery along the base of the Puente Hills pushed ahead and will go from using 60 percent reclaimed water to 100 percent after construction is completed on the final phase located within the cemetery’s original, 101-year-old section.
The latest phase — about 30 percent of the memorial park’s footprint — will cost $1 million, paid for in part by grants from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
“It is a better use of resources to help and assist cemeteries to use 100 percent reclaimed water,” summarized Kent Woods, senior managing director of Service Corporation International, the publicly-traded parent company and owner of several other cemeteries in Southern California.
The vast burial ground and mortuary contains the largest concentration of pipes delivering recycled water in the nation, said Shane Chapman, general manager of the Monrovia-based Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, the agency that is helping them reach that milestone.
Building a separate system of purple pipes took time and money. But when it came to the last 400 acres of the 1,400-acre cemetery, existing burial plots dating back to 1913 and one of the oldest mausoleums in California made it next to impossible to re-plumb for reclaimed water.
Instead, Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez wrote a bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2013 that allowed cemeteries to use existing irrigation pipes, sprinklers and hose bibs to carry the highly treated reclaimed water. Signs must warn the public that reclaimed water from the hose bibs is not for drinking.
Bruce Lazenby, executive director of business development at Rose Hills, pushed for the legislation for 10 years, eventually opening new ground for recycled water. He’s been invited by the California Department of Consumer Affairs to share the Rose Hills model with other cemeteries in the state attempting to meet the governor’s mandatory 25 percent water cutback.
Woods said some of the Forest Lawn cemeteries are using reclaimed water. Also, one of SCI’s properties, Valley Oaks in Thousand Oaks, has converted to 100 percent recycled water.
“I hope this model is established now,” Lazenby said. “We are trying to do good public policy. Using drinking water for watering golf courses and cemeteries is a waste of resources.”
Woods said as the cemetery expands in the newer section near Gate 1, that includes extending reclaimed water pipes for irrigation.
“This system will be available for all those future droughts,” said Ann Terese Heil, monitoring section head for the Sanitation Districts.
