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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