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The
Benefits of Reclaimed Water
Orange
County, Calif., is among the first systems in
America to employ, “toilet-to-tap"
technology and can also boost of having the
world's largest water-purification system.
This toilet-to-tap system is known as
the Groundwater Replenishment System and is
designed to take sewage water directly from
bathrooms and after an initial treatment send
the treated wastewater through filters, and
tanks for purification.
The treated water is then released into
lakes in nearby Anaheim, where it is again
treated by seeping through clay, sand, and rock
into aquifers located in the groundwater basin.
After several months, the water will
return to the half a million Orange County
residents, by means of their taps, showerheads,
toilets, and outdoor water hoses.
Many
of you right now are probably gagging and
considering purchasing bottled water for the
rest of your life. However, toilet-to-tap is not only an intelligent idea, it is
also one of the most reliable, and affordable
solutions we have in our fight against water
shortages worldwide.
In addition, this is not a new idea.
In fact, throughout the United States we
have been using recycled wastewater for non-potable
needs, such as agriculture and landscaping for
decades. It
was only a matter of time before someone
realized that we had the knowledge and
technology to move to potable uses.
The hardest part of this project was not
purifying the water but bringing the public out
of the dark ages and dispelling their negative
beliefs about the safety of the water.
In
2000, the public outcry against indirect
potable reuse (IPR), or toilet-to-tap was so
great that it forced the city of Los Angeles to
shut down a $55 million project, which would
have provided enough water for 120,000 homes.
San Diego residents who encouraged Mayor
Jerry Sanders to veto the city council’s
approval of a pilot program to use recycled
water as a supplement to the city’s drinking
water met similar unwillingness.
Before
many of you join the naysayers, let’s take a
closer look at how sewage water becomes clean,
drinking water.
The
new Indirect potable reuse treatment facility
takes treated sewage, which would have
previously been dumped into the ocean, is now
ran through an advanced state of the art
filtration system.
This filtration system turns the treated
sewage water into water that is so pure it has
to be treated with lime to prevent it from
leaching minerals out of the concrete
transportation pipes.
Once the treated sewage water has gone
through the filtration system, the water is for
all purposes pure.
This means that it is free of bacteria,
viruses, carcinogens, hormones, chemicals,
toxic heavy metals, fertilizers, pesticides and
pharmaceuticals, which according to the EPA can
be present in certain levels in the tape water
you are drinking now.
Orange
County’s treated water doesn’t go straight
to the tap.
Instead, the treated reclaimed water is
pumped into the county’s underground aquifer.
By doing this, the amount of saltwater
intrusion and supplement drinking water
supplies for county residents are reduced.
In addition, by adding the reclaimed
water to the groundwater supply provides
additional filtration to the water as it
percolates through the soil.
For
Orange County residence they will soon discover
that over time by using reclaimed water for
drinking water will less expensive than having
to continue to import drinking water from
surrounding counties of California and other
States. In
addition, if this is widely adopted by the
State of California, it could save the state
hundreds of millions of dollars by reducing
ocean outfall by more than half.
Because
of California’s success with its sewage
re-use plant, DeKalb County in Georgia is also
considering turning toilet water into drinking
water.
The
record drought of 2007 continues for Georgia
and officials throughout metro Atlanta are
looking for more water sources as well as more
ways to conserve water.
One possibility that DeKalb County is
looking into, is the sewage re-use plant
located on the South River that could treat
effluent that the county dumps into the river
and inject it into the drinking water system.
According
to DeKalb County officials, they will consider
exploring a variety of options, including
direct potable re-use, which as mentioned
before is also known as toilet-to-tap by its
critics.
The
State of Georgia as well as DeKalb County has
already instituted water restrictions in hopes
of stretching its water supply by using less.
DeKalb County as well as other counties
has instituted a rebate programs in hopes of
encouraging homeowners to install
water-conserving faucets, showerheads and
replace old toilets with newer water conserving
ones. Whether
or not DeKalb County as well as the state of
Georgia will adopt direct potable, re-use
system will be up to the politicians and to the
residences.
Xia
Siqing, an environmental science professor at
Tongji University in Shanghai states that in
2010 China will embrace direct potable re-use
water treatment technology.
This is according to a Feb 20 story on
Environmental Science & Technology Online
News. Perhaps
if China is successful in conserving water with
this technology, more and more nations around
the world will also wake-up and see the great
benefits of adopting direct potable re-use
technology.
After all, we must start now in coming
up with ways of conserving water before all our
taps run dry.
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