SAN ANTONIO -- San Antonio Water System kicked off a long-awaited project Thursday by pumping thousands of gallons of recycled water into the San Antonio River downtown.

The recycled water, which was taken from the Dos Rios Recycling Plant, flowed through a new piping system into the river near the loop at the Henry B. Convention Center.

The pumping is effort to clean the river water, which has tested for high levels of fecal coliform. The testing was reported first by KSAT 12 News in July.

"It should help with oxygen," SAWS spokeswoman Anne Hayden said. "It should help with dilution. We don't know if this is going to be enough to really make a difference in the downtown river as a whole, but it's a good start."

SAWS plans on pumping 600,000 gallons daily into the river, Hayden said.