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California Proposes Turning Toilet Wastewater into Drinking Water
Daily Fetched ^ | July 12, 2023 | Jason Walsh

Posted on 07/12/2023 6:42:26 AM PDT by Red Badger

California’s State Water Resources Control Board has proposed new regulations allowing toilet wastewater to be turned into drinking water.

The new “toilet-to-tap” program aims to tackle the state’s water shortages.

In a statement, the board said:

[T]he State Water Resources Control Board announced today proposed regulations that would allow for water systems to add wastewater that has been treated to levels meeting or exceeding all drinking water standards to their potable supplies. The process, known as direct potable reuse, will enable systems to generate a climate-resilient water source while reducing the amount of wastewater they release to rivers and the ocean.

Direct potable reuse relies entirely on immediate, multi-barrier treatment that can recycle wastewater to drinking water standards in a matter of hours.

This contrasts to the method currently being deployed in major projects launched throughout the state, called indirect potable reuse, which further improves treated wastewater over time through groundwater recharge or dilution with surface water.

While no formal direct potable reuse projects can be initiated in California until the regulations are adopted, water agencies in Santa Clara, San Diego, and the city of Los Angeles have launched pilot projects in recent years.

As Breitbart reported:

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has partnered with the Sanitation Districts in a new project to test the feasibility of treating and reusing a large percentage of the county’s water currently discharged to sea.

I was the first reporter to be allowed a look at a new demonstration project called the Advanced Purification Center, which, when operational, could result in a full-scale recycled water plant that would purify up to 150 million of the 250 million gallons per day that flow through the [Joint Water Pollution Control Plant in Los Angeles, or JWPCP].

The test facility, where construction began in 2017, will be completed later in 2019. It will purify about half a million gallons of water from JWPCP per day, using a special process that first uses microorganisms to remove ammonia and other nitrogen compounds from the water; then uses advanced filters to remove microorganisms and solids; and finally uses [reverse osmosis] membranes to purify the water, just as in a desalination plant.

The process is less expensive and less energy-intensive than desalination because the treated water, while too salty for immediate use, is only about a tenth as salty as seawater.

Once proven, the plant could be expanded — and, officials told me, could be operational in 11 years if all went as planned and the state approved all of the necessary permits.

The new regulations could be approved by the end of the year.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; US: California
KEYWORDS:
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To: Vaduz

They need.....BRAWNDO! It’s got what plants crave!......Electrolytes!.......................


41 posted on 07/12/2023 7:10:56 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

42 posted on 07/12/2023 7:12:29 AM PDT by Menehune56 ("Let them hate so long as they fear" (Oderint Dum Metuant), Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC))
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To: NorthMountain; larrytown

Not ALL ideas Californians endorse are ridiculous. This makes sense.

I have been to Red-State communities that have been doing this for years. Their water is fine and actually is better than most communities that don’t use so-called “grey water.” The days of capturing mountain streams or pristine aquifers to pipe fresh to our taps are over.


43 posted on 07/12/2023 7:12:47 AM PDT by oldplayer
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To: CIB-173RDABN

They put a nuclear power plant next to the ocean, but can’t put a desalination plant next to one.............


44 posted on 07/12/2023 7:13:05 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Fai Mao

Indeed.


45 posted on 07/12/2023 7:13:29 AM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Vaduz

Yep.


46 posted on 07/12/2023 7:13:45 AM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as)
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To: Red Badger

My Florida neighborhood used to be based on wells and septic tanks. Wells have to be at least 75 feet from on-site waste treatment areas by law.

The county ran water lines into the neighborhood about 20 years ago.

I drank well water until about 10 years ago. I stopped because the water was too hard. It now has too much iron taste as well.


47 posted on 07/12/2023 7:16:51 AM PDT by Brian Griffin (ARTICLE I SECTION 2....The President...may require the opinion, in writing)
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To: oldplayer
The days of capturing mountain streams or pristine aquifers to pipe fresh to our taps are over.

Those days never existed. Most big cities are sited on rivers for a variety of reasons. Water supply is one of them. Most peoples' tap water is taken from dirty surface water.

48 posted on 07/12/2023 7:16:59 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: Red Badger
Carlsbad Desalination Plant, San Diego, California.

On the ocean.

49 posted on 07/12/2023 7:18:44 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: Vaduz
De-salination is not an option because they dump millions of gallons of untreated sewage in the ocean daily

Its why they have daily bacteria count reports for beachgoers.

The idiot environmental cases made an industry out of checking miniscule automobile emiissions while they ddestroy the oceans , raise ocean temps with bacteria and thn blame you for climate change for driving your car

50 posted on 07/12/2023 7:18:45 AM PDT by KTM rider (Be Alert Stay Calm Think Clearly Act Decisively )
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To: Red Badger

You can annoy Muslims by pointing out that every glass of water they drink almost certainly contains water molecules that have passed through the kidneys of pigs.


51 posted on 07/12/2023 7:19:08 AM PDT by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: Red Badger

In the 1970’s Venice Fl had a tertiary wastewater treatment plant that turned wastewater into water that was of higher quality than that coming from the deep wells that it was drawing water from. It was proposed to recycle this water into the incoming well stream where it would have been diluted and mixed into the water treatment stream that all water goes through. The idea of mixing treated water into “drinking water” failed to pass. They use it to water golf courses instead. The issue is really this, we have too many contaminants in the water supply sources. Water is requiring more and more treatment to make it drinkable. Population increases have put even more pressures on the system. Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. Now is the past repeating itself.


52 posted on 07/12/2023 7:19:48 AM PDT by Waverunner
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To: NorthMountain

How did the environmentalists let that one slip by?.......


53 posted on 07/12/2023 7:20:32 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: HartleyMBaldwin

and dogs, infidels, and the dreaded women of Jerusleam.


54 posted on 07/12/2023 7:21:54 AM PDT by Waverunner
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To: CIB-173RDABN

Ping to desalination in San Diego.


55 posted on 07/12/2023 7:25:25 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: Red Badger

Leftists have been whining about the world running out of clean water for decades.

Niagara Falls - 85,000 cu ft / sec
Inga Falls - 910,000 cu ft / sec
Victoria Falls - 38,430 cu ft / sec
Livingston, Chute de - 885,000 cu ft / sec

etc.

Just another leftist scare tactic.


56 posted on 07/12/2023 7:25:49 AM PDT by TomGuy
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To: Red Badger

Article about Israeli reuse of wastewater for agriculture:
https://nocamels.com/2021/08/wastewater-reclamation-solution-not-perfect/

Hopefully, in California the pharmaceuticals in the waste water will be removed by reverse osmosis.


57 posted on 07/12/2023 7:28:22 AM PDT by Brian Griffin (ARTICLE I SECTION 2....The President...may require the opinion, in writing)
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To: Red Badger

So basically no change to Komiefornia water supply.


58 posted on 07/12/2023 7:28:54 AM PDT by maddog55 (The only thing systemic in America is the left's hatred of it!)
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To: Red Badger

Not sure. It’s apparenly 4-5 years old ...

in May, 2023, the “California Coastal Commission” killed a similar plant that would have been in Costa Mesa ... buncha f’idiots! They had their excuses, including that the water would have been too expensive for low-income people (!) ... but I think the real problem is that it works. Can’t have that.

I have been in places (on land) where the tap water is exclusively from desalination. You’d never know. It tastes and smells no different from any other properly treated tap water.


59 posted on 07/12/2023 7:31:02 AM PDT by NorthMountain (... the right of the peopIe to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: Vigilanteman
New Jesey is already doing this.

I know right? I thought lots of places recycled black water. Especially the more land-locked states.

60 posted on 07/12/2023 7:31:17 AM PDT by Incorrigible (If I lead, follow me; If I pause, push me; If I retreat, kill me.)
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