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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: 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.