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: 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.