Spaceship Lorton

County uses reclaimed water to irrigate golf course, little league fields.

Well, Not exactly a spaceship, but a step towards a more closed and sustainable plan for water in the region:

Starting next month, more than 400 million gallons of reclaimed water – bath, sink and laundry water that would have gone into the Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay - will be captured and reused to irrigate the golf course and little league fields. Reclaimed water will also be used for ball field irrigation at Lower Potomac Park and for energy processing at the Covanta Energy Resource Recovery facility.

In May, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will officially launch the water reclamation project at the Noman M. Cole Jr. Pollution Control Plant on Richmond Highway. The project, which began in 2009, is partially funded by $6.5 million in federal stimulus funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Clean Water Revolving Fund Loan Program.

More than 500 million gallons of treated reclaimed water will be stored at the Covanta Energy Resource Recovery Facility. The use of reclaimed water means that Fairfax County can conserve drinking water, preserving an estimated two million gallons of drinking water per day, according to county officials, and will generate revenue.

There isn't a  whole lot of exciting news around the Chesapeake Bay today, so I settled on this piece, and given my role in the water supply for our area, it's more exciting to me than it is to most of you, I guess.  Water supplies are being challenged in our region.  Most of the area is on wells, and the shallower cheaper aquifers are near their maximum utilization.  The Potomac and Patuxent Rivers, also sources of drinking water here,  are also near their maximum practical use, so reusing "gray" water to irrigate on a large scale makes a lot of sense.  One of the better uses of Stimulus funds that I've heard.