Saving drinking water in a drought is like giving water to a fish, and the East Bay Municipal Utility District started saving 300,000 gallons more drinking water a day late last month, EBMUD officials said.

The utility district on Sept. 30, connected its recycled water system to Canyon Lakes Golf Course in San Ramon, saving the hundreds of thousands of gallons a day, which can hydrate about 6,000 residents.

“We need to get smart about how we irrigate parks and golf courses as we navigate this drought,” EBMUD board member John Coleman said in a statement. “This is a great shot for EBMUD.”

The first nine holes on the Canyon Lakes course were switched to recycled water in April and the last nine were just switched. Canyon Lakes is about 50 acres and is situated in San Ramon.

Water recycled by EBMUD is highly treated wastewater, which is not for drinking but can be used for irrigation, cooling buildings, and among other things, industrial processes.

The utility has a goal of recycling 20 million gallons per day by 2040. Currently, EBMUD serves parks, golf courses, construction sites and other customers with 9 million gallons of recycled water a day.

Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.