Business & Tech

Travel Channel Spotlighting Fountain Valley's 'Toilet to Tap' Center

"Off Limits" will air a segment on the treatment plant Tuesday night.

The Orange County Water District's in Fountain Valley has already garnered a fair share of praise since opening in January 2008. It's won awards for its advanced water conservation as well as civil engineering, and it's been featured by media outlets nationwide and abroad. But Tuesday night, the facility will go somwhere it's never been: cable TV.

The plant will be featured Tuesday night on an episode of the Travel Channel's Off Limits, an hourlong weekly show that takes viewers behind the scenes of some of the country's most hidden, forbidden and unseen places.

"With any type of exposure our facility gets, that it acts as an educational tool about where we get our water," said Mike Markus, general manager of the Orange County Water District. "We really have to take extraordinary measures to ensure that we have an adequate water supply. The more that we can expose people to water recycling, the better off we all are because recycling is such an important thing we do here in Southern California, and we do such a good job of it as a whole in Southern California."

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"Off Limits" host Don Wildman toured the facility, referred to as "toilet to tap" by locals, with a camera crew, taking viewers through each step of the process as waste water from throughout Orange County makes it way to the facility and is gradually treated to a near-distilled state. The segment's signature moment (spoiler alert!) is when Wildman and Markus drink an impromptu toast, using water that had been in someone's toilet just 45 minutes eariler.

"It's kind of funny because every time we give a tour of the facility, it always ends up at the sample sink, and that always seals the deal," Markus said. "Once people taste the water and see that it tates like water, it really has a profound effect."

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"Off Limits" will air Tuesday night at 11 p.m. on the Travel Channel.


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