"Toilet To Tap" Coming to California

[-SpectraL]

I can see somewhat of a parallel here to the Soylent Green scenario...


Acknowledging California's parched new reality, the city of San Diego has embraced a once-toxic idea: turning sewer water into drinking water.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to advance a $2.5-billion plan to recycle wastewater, the latest example of how California cities are looking for new supplies amid a severe drought.

Each of the nine council members effusively praised the effort before the vote as a way to make San Diego less dependent on imported water and insulated from drought.

"We're at the end of the pipeline," said Councilman Scott Sherman. "We have a real problem getting water down here."

Such recycling, called toilet-to-tap by critics, has suffered an image problem that industry insiders call "the yuck factor."

San Diego, a city of 1.4 million people that imports 85 percent of its water from the Colorado River and Northern California, has slowly warmed to the idea. A 2012 survey by the San Diego County Water Authority showed that nearly three of four residents favored turning wastewater into drinking water, a major shift from one of four in a 2005 survey.

"The drought puts a finer point on why this is so necessary," Mayor Kevin Faulconer said. "Droughts are unfortunately a way of life in California, so we have to be prepared. This helps us to control our own destiny."

The plan calls to initially recycle 15 million gallons by 2023 and 83 million gallons a day by 2035, about one-third of the city's water supply. It enjoys broad support from business groups and environmental advocates.

The Orange County Water District, which serves 2.4 million people in California, plans to boost production of recycled water next year from 70 million gallons to 100 million gallons a day. It has reused wastewater for drinking since 2008 through treatment that includes sending water through ground basins.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District, which serves 1.8 million people in the San Francisco Bay area, decided in September to pursue construction of facilities that it says could lead to turning wastewater into drinking water for Sunnyvale and western Santa Clara County.

Still, it remains rare to turn sewage to drinking water. The WateReuse Association, a group of agencies behind the efforts, counts only 10 projects nationwide, including El Paso, Texas, and Fairfax County, Virginia. Two Texas cities, Wichita Falls and Big Spring, started projects within the past two years.

On Tuesday, the San Diego council ratified an agreement between the mayor and four environmental groups - San Diego Coastkeeper, Surfrider Foundation, Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation and San Diego Audubon Society - to ask the Environmental Protection Agency for another reprieve and to commit to the recycled wastewater plan. Unlike Orange County, San Diego plans to send water through a reservoir because it lacks groundwater basins.

Richard Nagel, general manger of the West Basin Municipal Water District, which serves about 900,000 people in Southern California, said he has fielded inquiries from about a half-dozen agencies lately who are interested in recycling wastewater. His agency began in 1995 in response to an earlier drought.

"It's the investment you make for a locally produced, drought-proof water supply," he said.




source: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=922_1416407244

[ngalo1983]

I use to always tell kids from San Diego to eat shit but this is just taking it to far....

[HampTheToker]

*Facepalm*



Soylent green???





Really¿¿¿

[-SpectraL]

How the hell do you get AIDS, Hepatitis, Gonorrhea and the Rotavirus out of waste water anyways??

[Prometheus]

Chlorine, filters, ultra-violet light, boiling, etc...

[-SpectraL]

Chlorine, filters, ultra-violet light, boiling, etc...

Chlorine, boiling and UV kills HIV? Really??

[Slave of the Beast]

Just think, that glass of nice cool water out of your tap could've come fresh from Zek's bladder. Still, look on the bright side, all that second-hand oestrogen will probably take the edge of any impending male-pattern baldness. He's probably on birth control pills too (it's best not to ask) so you'll likely be chugging on ethinyl estradiol as well. Yum Yum. Get it down you son. It'll put hairs on your ch... oh, no... it won't.

I jest of course. Reverse osmosis and UV light treatment should filter out unwanted chemicals and destroy pathogens in reclaimed water. Or at the very least reduce their occurence down to 'acceptable' levels, i.e. no worse than water from more traditional sources. Distillation would achieve the same results but this is a very expensive and energy intensive process when used on an industrial scale.

[-SpectraL]

What's an "acceptable level" of HIV?

[Slave of the Beast]

HIV is quite fragile. A combination of UV light treatment and chlorination on reverse omosis-filtered reclaimed water will destroy HIV extremely effectively; the same holds true for most human pathogens.

[kroz]

wow spectral, this is nothing new.. where are you from out of curiosity?

[kroz]

a lot of things kill hiv you're pretty much only going to get it if you smoke meth and take it up the ass and or have a poor imunestytem to begine with.

[-SpectraL]

What if something goes wrong with the filtration system and no one discovers it before consumption of waste water occurs?

[ngalo1983]

What if something goes wrong with the filtration system and no one discovers it before consumption of waste water occurs?

California becomes a zombie.

[Flowerz]

What if something goes wrong with the filtration system and no one discovers it before consumption of waste water occurs?

The exact same thing that would happen if the current filtration systems and sanitation methods fail. People would get sick.

[-SpectraL]

What if something goes wrong with the filtration system and no one discovers it before consumption of waste water occurs?

The exact same thing that would happen if the current filtration systems and sanitation methods fail. People would get sick.

This is different, though. This is waste water.. human excrement, blood, piss, saliva, sweat.. everything. There's a big difference between getting sick and getting a terminal or lifelong virus. If they don't filtrate HIV and Hepatitis out of the water, such when an "accident" occurs, and you drink it, guess what? You now have HIV and Hepatitis.