CALIFORNIA BREWERIES CHICO FULL

Seeded with money from Nasa, the US Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and a private-equity firm (controlled by Spanish infrastructure mogul Rafael del Pino Y Calvo-Sotelo), Cambrian sells a modular system that uses microbes to treat wastewater on site and generate energy in the process. Anticipating a tightening water market, Lagunitas spent two years searching for a way to avoid trucking 50,000 precious gallons of water off site. Such restrictions underscore the ever-growing – and costly – thirst of business, industry, farms and cities. Sharyon spoke with the Guardian days after California water officials decided to stop deliveries beyond the Sacramento River Delta, forcing millions of residents, businesses and farmers throughout the state to ration water.

'For me it was just kind of appalling to think we had to haul this water by the truck to another facility 50, 60 miles away and then layer on top of this the environmental impact.' 'It's a hell of a lot of trucks and a hell of a lot of money,' CFO Leon Sharyon said. (Microorganisms require oxygen to break down organic materials that they eat as food the higher the presence of these materials, the more oxygen gets depleted from these water sources.) The company must transport the water all the way to Oakland because Petaluma's wastewater system (like many other sewer systems) can't handle the 'biological oxygen demand' of the organic materials in the water Lagunitas discharges. On top of the obvious environmental impact, the shipments cost the company, Lagunitas – by volume the United States's fifth largest craft brewer and 15th largest overall – thousands of dollars daily. And transporting them unleashes thousands of tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

But shipping away tens of thousands of gallons of water each day, amid a California drought of historic proportions, is an especially worrisome waste.

CALIFORNIA BREWERIES CHICO FULL

The brewing process leaves the water too full of organic compounds to be simply dumped in local sewer systems. Each day, trucks filled with wastewater from a brewery in Petaluma, California, slog 50 miles south to a water treatment plant in Oakland.

California breweries chico