From a marketing point of view, using treated sewage to create drinking water is a proposition that has proved difficult to sell to customers. Now John Schwartz writes in the NYT that as California scrambles for ways to cope with its crippling drought and the mandatory water restrictions imposed last month by Gov. Jerry Brown, enticing people to drink recycled water is requiring California residents to get past what experts call the “yuck” factor.
Efforts in the 1990s to develop water reuse in San Diego and Los Angeles were beaten back by activists who denounced what they called, devastatingly, “toilet to tap.” Orange County swung people to the idea of drinking recycled water with a special purification plant which has been operating since 2008 avoiding a backlash with a massive public relations campaign that involved more than 2,000 community presentations. The county does not run its purified water directly into drinking water treatment plants; instead, it sends the water underground to replenish the area’s aquifers and to be diluted by the natural water supply. This environmental buffer seems to provide an emotional buffer for consumers as well.
In 2000, Los Angeles actually completed a sewage reclamation plant capable of providing water to 120,000 homes — the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys. The plan was abandoned after public outrage. Angelenos, it seemed, were too good to drink perfectly safe recycled water — dismissed as “toilet to tap.” But Los Angeles is ready to try again, with plans to provide a quarter of the city’s needs by 2024 with recycled water and captured storm water routed through aquifers. ”The difference between this and 2000 is everyone wants this to happen,” says Marty Adams. The inevitable squeamishness over drinking water that was once waste ignores a fundamental fact, says George Tchobanoglous: “When it comes down to it, water is water. Everyone who lives downstream on a river is drinking recycled water.”
(Score: 4, Informative) by bradley13 on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:43PM
Living in a desert, with water regulations so screwed up that it makes sense to use flood irrigation to raise rice in the desert. That's the real problem.
Of course, it's perfectly safe to drink recycled water - all water is ultimately recycled. But that's not the problem, and it's not really the solution either. Deregulate, and let people sell their water rights, if that makes economic sense for them. Everybody wins: the farmers have an option they didn't have before (and are likely to switch to more sensible crops and farming practices), and the cities will have enough water. What's not to like?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:50PM
We gonna deregulate everything. You want water, you fucking fight for it, neighbor against neighbor. You better build a fucking siege fortress around your fucking house, 'cause those fuckers gonna steal your water. Steal your water and kill your fucking ass. Better get some big ass guns to protect your water. We don't need no fucking regulations, we don't need no fucking rights, and we don't need no fucking laws. We only need big fucking guns. Fuck yeah!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:56PM
There was an episode of Inspector Gadget where MAD used a gigantic space magnifying glass to evaporate all of the world's oceans so that MAD had total control over the water supply. Once that was achieved, they sold their drinking water to desperate thirsty populations at ridiculous rates.
The moral of the Story? Los Angeles and its inhabitants should be destroyed by a gigantic space magnifying glass.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:12PM
Deregulation! What are you, an idiot, or a Republican? But, as Mark Twain said. I repeat myself. Sure, see what happens when agriculture has to compete with real estate developers and golf courses. I mean, who needs food when you've got unregulated money?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @10:15PM
You'd better this, you'd better that. I'm not scared. You know why? I'm going to build a moat! Let's see you get past that!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @01:17PM
"Stop drinking my moat, you bastards!"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @07:09PM
Deregulate, and let people sell their water rights
Unless I'm misinformed, people can already sell their water rights. That's kind of the point of regulation and water rights... they have the right to use it in any way they want, including to sell it.
Deregulation would be the abolishment of all governance over water, which would mean it would purely be a first-come-first-serve. Presumably those upstream would take all of it.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are proposing?
(Score: 2) by snick on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:07PM
Look at a map some time. The vast majority of usable water in California falls as snow in the mountains, and flows to the sea. Most people live on the coast, where very little usable water falls, and they have no way to deliver it to the central valley for agriculture in any case. The free market has no magic beans to change these realities.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday May 13 2015, @01:50PM
The invisible hand exists only the jerk off politicians and the rich.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:44PM
But, Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes, like what they use to make Brawndo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:09PM
"It's the Thirst Mutilator!"
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:48PM
Water? Like out of the toilet?
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday May 13 2015, @01:54PM
Never has this statement been more accurate.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Informative) by jmorris on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:44PM
Other than proving it can be done, the better question is why? Why spend millions on plants that history shows voters will reject? There is no good reason for investing in the far more expensive processing to go from toilet to tap when you can far more cheaply make sewage clean enough for agricultural uses AND make random water from the environment safe to drink. Seems more a case of elites wanting to change public opinion and prove their superiority and domination... while they drink Perrier™.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @07:31PM
(Score: 5, Funny) by snick on Tuesday May 12 2015, @07:39PM
Most agriculture is in the central valley, and most of the raw sewage is on the coast.
Shit would have to flow uphill.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @09:19PM
THIS...
Why send potentially contaminated water into the "clean" aquifer? OK I understand that the water is good and clean; until someone turns the wrong valve or the system breaks down. Then you've injected things into the ground that may start growing there. If we keep putting things into the pristine wilderness of the aquifers we will not have any clean water in the end. It's not like the above ground wilderness that we can hike into and see the damage; this is only seen with expensive testing.
Ok are ready to chant to the our great leaders.... get set ready go....
Ohm... MONEY.... MONEY.... MONEY.... MONEY.....
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @09:57PM
Bottle it and sell it as Peerier for a high price to californians.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @01:29AM
You got mod'd Funny but there's a related story that's interesting.
Nestle has been bottling California water under the Arrowhead brand and selling it at premium prices to suckers for a long time.
The recent story is that Nestle's permit to do that expired in 1988.
The Desert Sun (Palm Springs area) researched this and found that 616 of 1108 water-related permits in Cali were expired [desertsun.com] but the companies were still doing business as if those were still valid.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 13 2015, @02:07AM
There is no good reason for investing in the far more expensive processing to go from toilet to tap when you can far more cheaply make sewage clean enough for agricultural uses...
Already done is a pretty good reason.
From the article:
Water recycling is common for uses like irrigation; purple pipes in many California towns deliver water to golf courses, zoos and farms.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Ken_g6 on Tuesday May 12 2015, @06:58PM
As a resident of the Colorado mountains, I find drinking downstream river water gross.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:59PM
Where do you think your rainwater comes from? Hint: It is to the west and referenced in the headline.
(Score: 2) by Ken_g6 on Tuesday May 12 2015, @09:34PM
The sky. ;)
More to the point, I don't think most water treatment plants use distillation, the way the water cycle distills rain.
Actually, I'd probably prefer a "toilet to tap" recycling system versus a water treatment plant that takes in river water and does basically nothing to it but add chlorine. The recycling system should filter out all sorts of nasty chemicals, hopefully as well as distillation does.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @06:04AM
You are right. Recycled water would probably end up cleaner than normal sources.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by CortoMaltese on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:05PM
Because we really need to have our lawn filled with grass in the middle of the desert.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:50PM
Look, the American dream depends on covering an acre or two with a European plant species.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 12 2015, @09:04PM
It was a European habit in origin, but the many, many varieties of grasses used for managed lawns in the United States are generally native to the American continent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by snick on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:53PM
Yeah, ornamental lawns are a waste (and succulents can actually be quite beautiful) but you are falling for the narrative. As long as 80% of the water goes to agriculture, _no_ amount of home conservation can make a useful dent in the problem.
If non-agricultural users in California all cut their consumption to 0, we'd still be in a bind. Blaming lawns for that is stupid.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by t-3 on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:13PM
Do Californians not learn the water cycle in elementary school? ALL water has been waste at some point, get the fuck over it.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday May 12 2015, @08:34PM
</sarcasm>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday May 13 2015, @12:42AM
You know who else drank water? Hitler!
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Rich on Tuesday May 12 2015, @10:03PM
Would they rather have the water take a trip through oceans and lakes where fish fuck in it?
If the reprocessing is good enough for our spacefarers, it should be good enough for us. (I had to look up and read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_ECLSS#Water_recovery_systems [wikipedia.org] now :)
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday May 13 2015, @12:10AM
I prefer my water be recycled through a really big distillation plant.
I am talking on a scale of the Pacific Ocean as an evaporator and the Rocky Mountains as the condenser.
With lots of oxygen and raw sunlight in between to break down anything organic that might be hitching a ride.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @02:01AM
The thing is that after that, it has to be *stored* somewhere.
Typically, that's in a lake or other open area.
Humans Peeing In Lake May Have Killed 500 Fish [inquisitr.com]
Public Utilities Commission employee Faces Suspension After Peeing in San Francisco Reservoir [cbslocal.com]
...then there's my favorite:
Portland discards 38 million gallons of water after man caught peeing in reservoir [katu.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @01:58PM
Except those examples are all bullshit and you know it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday May 13 2015, @12:33AM
... would make a lot more water available for drinking, as most residential water goes down the porcelain throne.
I once toured the Integral Urban House in Berkeley, more or less a bunch of hippies worked really hard to build a home that is in balance with the environment. They had a no-water toilet that they imported from Sweden - whose name I don't recall - you'd go #2 into it, then toss in a handful of chopped up straw (they didn't mention what they did with the toilet paper). Over the course of a couple of years your dookies traveled on a serpentine route until the fully composted, uh "product" could be shoveled out through a hatch on the floor below.
Our tour guide warned us he would be opening the hatch, we all held out breaths then... - it looked and smelled just like topsoil.
For pee-pee, they used a grey water system to water their flowers. They watered their vegetable garden with the city water supply, so as not to risk disease by getting human waste into their food supply.
These days, someone is selling a no-flush urinal. There is a Starbucks in Portland that has one, just across Couch Street from Powells City of Books. However, when I was a teenager, my father plumbed a motor oil funnel into a drainpipe in our garage, so he and I didn't have to go inside when we were covered with grease from working on the car.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @02:14AM
Brilliant things. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [alternet.org]
(Flush toilets consume 40 percent of a typical home's water.)
...then combine it with a digester [sswm.info] to reclaim the biogas and use that.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @08:42AM
Didn't you notice three sea shells besides the toilet?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @03:32PM
Changing all the toilets to flushless would at most do about as much as improving water use in agriculture by 1%.
Agricultural use of water in California dwarfs domestic use:
http://www.water.ca.gov/wateruseefficiency/agricultural/ [ca.gov]
In average year California agriculture irrigates 9.6 million acres using roughly 34 million acre-feet of water of the 43 million acre-feet diverted from surface waters or pumped from groundwater.
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108 [ppic.org]
Approximately nine million acres of farmland in California are irrigated, representing roughly 80% of all human water use
See also: http://www.ppic.org/content/images/wateruse2-full.png [ppic.org]
Applies to the USA on average: http://water.usgs.gov/edu/qa-usage-freshwater.html [usgs.gov]
note that "urban" use includes _industrial_ use as well which can be quite high.
Assuming all 40 million Californians flush 6 litre toilets 5 times a day= 30 litres * 40 million per day = 356,065 acre feet per year. That's only a bit over 1% of 34 million acre feet per year.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 13 2015, @03:11AM
Orange County swung people to the idea of drinking recycled water with a special purification plant which has been operating since 2008 avoiding a backlash with a massive public relations campaign that involved more than 2,000 community presentations.
No it didn't. Orange County water tastes like shit--so much so that even a Brita won't make a dent. Bottled water delivery companies make a mint here.