FALLBROOK - As imported water supplies tighten across Southern California and local farmers cope with 30 percent cutbacks, the Fallbrook Public Utility District has one solution that officials say could help ease the strain: recycled water.

The district already sells recycled water to several Fallbrook nurseries and a golf course in Oceanside, and is seeking to add two more high-volume customers this year, officials said.

It costs more to convert wastewater into recycled water than to buy treated water from the Metropolitan Water District, but officials said the payoff is worth it in a year of limited water supplies.

Compared with $500 an acre-foot for treated drinking water, the $800 to $900 it takes to produce an acre-foot of recycled water may seem steep, but every gallon recycled is one less gallon of Northern California water the district must buy, they point out.

General Manager Keith Lewinger said the district must account for the 30 percent cutbacks to agricultural customers at the end of the year, and that selling more recycled water would help relieve some of that pressure.

"On top of that, the farmer that is using the reclaimed water doesn't have to cut back at all," he said. "Everybody wins."

The Metropolitan Water District imposed 30 percent agricultural cutbacks Jan. 1 due to an August court decision that called for pumps in Northern California's delta region to be shut down during parts of the year to protect an endangered fish. The district, which is based in Los Angeles, provides Fallbrook with 97 percent of its water supply.

Since that court decision, water agencies throughout Southern California have been exploring ways of developing secondary water supplies.

The Fallbrook Public Utility District produces 2,400 acre-feet of recycled water every year, 2,000 of which are not used and flow into the Pacific via the Oceanside Ocean Outfall, said the district's chief engineer, Joe Jackson.

The other 400 acre-feet are either sold to nurseries and groves, or donated for such causes as watering trees and shrubs on the South Mission Road median north of Fallbrook High School, said Jackson.

An acre-foot is roughly equivalent to 326,000 gallons, or enough to sustain two households for a year.

The California Department of Transportation also buys recycled water from the Fallbrook district, in accordance with state laws requiring Caltrans to use recycled water on its highway and interstate landscaping.

Jackson said the water recycling process puts wastewater through three stages of purification, including filtering and chlorine treatment, and that the final product is suitable for "full body contact," meaning it could be used to fill swimming pools.

It's biologically sterile and just a little more salty than drinking water, he said.

According to state law, recycled water must be delivered through different pipes than tap water because it is not as pure. Therein lies much of the cost of selling the second-hand liquid, Jackson said.

For example, the district is planning to spend about $120,000 to expand its recycled water pipeline past Fallbrook High, a longtime customer, so that it can sell recycled water to another nursery.

That project is on hold until the district can gain access to an easement for the pipeline extension, Jackson said.

Recycled water is commonly used to water sports fields and groves, and would be suitable even for watering home landscaping, although the cost of dual plumbing systems would be "more trouble than it's worth," he said.

One idea for using reclaimed water in much larger amounts would involve storing recycled water in a reservoir near Camp Pendleton, then siphoning it through groundwater basins and purifying it to sell as drinking water, said Jackson.

That idea mirrors a $490 million project that will begin pumping treated water into the ground this year in Orange County, but has been criticized by some local residents as a fancy "toilet-to-tap" plan.

In a Jan. 2 report in the Los Angeles Times, officials said the Orange County effort could eventually add 130 million gallons a day to the fresh-water supply, easing dependence on imported water.

Jackson said no plans have been made for such a project in Fallbrook, so for the time being the district will continue trying to sell more of the 2,000 acre-feet of recycled water that it pumps into the ocean every year.

Contact staff writer Tom Pfingsten at (760) 740-3516 or tpfingsten@nctimes.com.