Laguna Beach will convert 25 existing outdoor drinking fountains into stations designed to refill water bottles. The City Council appropriated about $237,000 to Horizons Construction Co. International to complete the work.
Two foundations have already been completed and five will be converted as part of planned facility upgrades. Three additional sites were unable to be converted. This effort is part of a larger Neighborhood and Environmental Protection Plan that bans using most single-use plastic containers in the city limits.
The Laguna Bluebelt Coalition celebrated councilmembers’ awarding the contract.
“Installing refillable drinking fountains throughout town is one of many responsible steps the Council has taken to protect our environment and we applaud them for it. Plastic kills fish, seabirds and marine mammals off Laguna’s shores. It’s an invisible threat breaking down into millions of small particles which our sea life ingests,” Laguna Bluebelt Coalition co-founder Jinger Wallace wrote in an email.
The Environmental and Sustainability Committee initiated this project and recommended the City Council earmark the necessary funding.
