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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTurning sewage into drinking water gains appeal as drought lingers
Turning sewage into drinking water gains appeal as drought lingers
May 24, 2015, 8:50 PM
It's a technology with the potential to ease California's colossal thirst and insulate millions from the parched whims of Mother Nature, experts say..
But there's just one problem the "yuck factor."
As a fourth year of drought continues to drain aquifers and reservoirs, California water managers and environmentalists are urging adoption of a polarizing water recycling policy known as direct potable reuse.
Unlike nonpotable reuse in which treated sewage is used to irrigate crops, parks or golf courses direct potable reuse takes treated sewage effluent and purifies it so it can be used as drinking water.
It's a concept that might cause some consumers to wince, but it has been used for decades in Windhoek, Namibia where evaporation rates exceed annual rainfall and more recently in drought-stricken Texas cities, including Big Spring and Wichita Falls.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-toilet-to-tap-20150525-story.html#page=1
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)thank you very much.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Gawd, we are a stupid species.
People, some of them progressives, want to build energy-intensive desalination plants to solve the water shortage.
There is not a shortage of water, there is a shortage of precipitation. We need to reduce use of drinking water for non drinking purposes, promote grey water reuse, and process all of our wastewater back into drinking water and then treat that water as sacred.
The process produces water that is purer than most bottled waters, but people turn up their noses and complain about the dire state of things.
First world problems in a nutshell...
Proud Public Servant
(2,097 posts)Singapore does this -- probably pioneered it (maybe not, but it strikes me as very Singaporean). My lasting impression was that it didn't taste like anything, even compared to other kinds of water. Really odd -- but not gross.
Cirque du So-What
(25,812 posts)have likely passed through some pretty putrid places in their lifetime.