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Toilet to Tap or Perfectly Potable? California Uses New Treatment Technology to Increase Water Resources
Pressed for water resources, California's Orange County has spent millions of dollars to build and recently open a state-of-the-art water treatment system that processes and transforms formerly flushed sewage into drinkable tap water.
The Orange County Water Replenishment System cost about $480 million and took about a decade to build. But the lengthy construction period had more to do with mindset that actual development obstacles, as Bottlemania
The stumbling block was psychological, not architectural. An aversion to feces is nearly universal, and as critics of the process are keen to point out, getting sewage out of drinking water was one of the most important public health advances of the last 150 years.
But as the population swells, the aquifers dry up and the surrounding area snowpacks melt, southern Californian's -- whether they think it's great or gross -- are running out of options, and will have to continue to look for new ways to reduce and reuse:
Saltwater from the Pacific Ocean was entering the county’s water supply, drawn in by overpumping from the groundwater basin, says Ron Wildermuth, who at the time we talked was the water district’s spokesman. Moreover, population growth meant more wastewater, which meant building a second sewage pipe, five miles into the Pacific — a $200 million proposition. Recycling the effluent solved the disposal problem and the saltwater problem in one fell swoop. A portion of the plant’s filtered output is now injected into the ground near the coast, to act as a pressurized barrier against saltwater from the ocean. Factor in Southern California’s near chronic drought, the county’s projected growth (another 300,000 to 500,000 thirsty people by 2020) and the rising cost of importing water from the Colorado River and from Northern California (the county pays $530 per acre-foot of imported water, versus $520 per acre-foot of reclaimed water), and rebranding sewage as a valuable resource became a no-brainer.
As we move into an age of tighter and tighter ecological limits, choices (and controversies) like this one will become increasingly common...plus it's pretty interesting to read how the process works.
Photo credit: Dwight Eschliman for the New York Times
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(Posted by Sarah Kuck in Water at 1:51 PM)
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