Banning owns its own water canyon, through which flows the San Gorgonio River, a sprightly little mountain stream. But the City has to buy some water in dry times. Water use is one of California's most heated political issues, as the city and Liberty Energy discovered when they proposed a sludge incinerator next to the wastewater treatment plant: residents went ballistic. Unlike Beaumont, Banning's wastewater goes into the Colorado River Basin; no tertiary treatment or purple pipe is required.
Duane Burk oversees water/wastewater operations from his office in the City yard on Lincoln Street.