Posted on 05/15/2008 3:09:23 PM PDT by XR7
LOS ANGELES — Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Department of Water and Power are expected to announce on May 15 a revised water use and management plan for this city that includes using recycled wastewater to recharge drinking water aquifers, according to a May 15 Los Angeles Times article.
The new plan allocates about $1 billion for the proposed reclamation system, also known as “toilet-to-tap” or “sewer-to-spigot.” The city would recycle about 4.9 billion gallons of treated wastewater to drinking standards by 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported on May 15.
Villaraigosa, who less than a decade ago opposed such a plan, now is considering using the highly treated wastewater to recharge underground drinking supplies serving the San Fernando Valley, Los Feliz and the Eastside, The Times said.
The long-term proposal is expected to carry a $2 billion total price tag, and impose water-use restrictions on Angelenos. Ratepayers also would be encouraged to upgrade their appliances to those that are water-saving. The Times reported that financial incentives and building code changes would be used to incorporate high-tech conservation equipment in homes and businesses.
The proposed plan has been devised to help the city meet its increasing water demand, which is expected to grow by 15 percent within the next 22 years.
Department of Water and Power General Manager David Nahai said in the article, “This is a radical departure for the city of Los Angeles.”
Nahai said some details of the proposed plan need to be worked out, but in crafting the new plan, the city has looked at its previous water reclamation attempt in the 1990s.
“This is a new day. We have new technology. We’re going to reach out very aggressively to the public and engage them as to the facts,” Nahai said in the article.
The handful of “toilet-to-tap” water recycling operations in the United States typically treat wastewater to at least drinking-water quality before sending it into drinking water supplies.
To read the full Los Angeles Times article, click here.
To read the full Wall Street Journal article, which includes an in-depth look at recycled water, click here.
For related information on this story, click here.
They cannot remove all perscription residue.
I thought only the French used that stuff.
Yes...responsible conservation. But don't bring up such things on FR!
Yes, all except for Viagra contaminants. Cheers.
This goes along with his “We clean your toilets speech.”
“Do you remove prescription drug contaminants?”
We do not. Nor do we need to. Our system is supplied by very deep wells. Our system is very small, 300 homes, and a couple of businesses. I just received my yearly report from the Cleveland water system. They do not remove pharms either. Their system gets water from “cribs” well off-shore in lake Erie. There have as yet been no testing schedules set, nor any MCLs determined re pharms, but the levels are in the parts per trillion, which are so inconceivably small that most people can’t comprehend them. Until the EPA decides what to do, and if there is any harm in these miniscule levels, no one knows what to do. I think the pharm industry will have to be involved in any solution, if indeed one is required. They need to make medicines that are better absorbed by the body, with much less “pass through” waste.
Unfortunately, the snow pack, yellow or not, is pretty meager this time of year in Los Angeles County.
“John and Ken are going to have sooo much fun with this today.”
I thought they were in San Fransicko getting married today.
And this is after it’s already been processed in San Francisco.
There isn’t enough money in the WORLD for me to drink that water unless I’m dying...literally DYING.
They inject it into a “buffer” aquifer to keep salt water from intruding upon the drinking water aquifer. Although, surely, some of that water leaches into the drinking aquifer, drinking water is not pumped from it.
A few years ago, LA County was considering injecting treated waste water into the aquifer in the San Gabriel Valley which is east of Los Angeles. Well, Miller Brewing Co. has a brewery in Irwindale on the north end of that valley. Miller told the county it would close the brewery if the county started using treated waste water. That stopped that one.
What about phalates, triclosan, birth control hormones, hormones mimics, and all of that?
Some of those are definitely not being cleared from water supplies at the moment, and some of them are inorganic. Will california environmentalist groups be able to stop these sewer to spigot programs with lawsuits?
I think they should save their money and just drink their urine.
Remember never to take a space flight for an extended mission.
Sorry, John and Ken are radio talk show hosts at KFI640.
That was a good guess, though, LOLOLO!!
I should have read the comments first. Thanks for some answers to my questions.
Bravely posting before reading threads since 1999,
JH
Toilet to tap is a faalse description. Orange County already uses this technique, and they pour the water into the aquifer. By the time it reaches the customer’s tap, it has been sitting in the ground for quite some time.
Plus there’s the fact that this stuff is filtered so highly that there’s nothing in it. No viruses, no microscopic shreds of toilet paper, nothing. It’s taste is described as being more like bottled water than tap water.
Yep, lots of nasty past date prescriptions go down the toilet.
You’re correct.
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