Legislators in the state of California are slated to approve new measures to create a filtration system that, as gross as it may sound, turns wastewater into drinking water.
As the Los Angeles Times reports, the so-called "toilet to tap" ruling is expected to be approved by California's State Water Resources Control Board this week and will lead to new construction on advanced water treatment plants built to convert raw sewage to potable water.
"We’re creating a new source of supply that we were previously discharging or thinking of as waste," Heather Cooley, the director of research at the Pacific Institute think tank, told the LA Times. "As we look to make our communities more resilient to drought, to climate change, this is really going to be an important part of that solution."
Well, it should be doable enough, but do you trust your government enough to drink it?
The Wombat had Rule 5 Sunday: Santa, Baby! up at The Other McCain in time for St. Nick.
Well, if you live in a city that draws it's drinking water from a river, look up stream and see how many cities discharge their sewer plants into that same river, or a major tributary of that river. then tell me this proposal is un safe, or undoable.
ReplyDeletei lived in Santee Ca. near the 7 pond system that turns sewer waist water into water used for the fire fighting system.
we could fish in the lower 3 or 4 ponds, and the catfish were pretty good eating. it's only a small processing step to go from there to drinkable water.
Nobody said it was theoretically undo-able. But given how municipal services are run, and by who, the issue is whether you would trust them to run it the way it was designed to be run , year after year.
ReplyDeleteYou only have to look at the Flint MI water system (poisoning the populace), or the Baltimore wastewater (multiple fines for illegal discharges) to know that they will cut corners, fake operational data, and their priority will be to protect public union jobs.