Why do our friends in Orange County CA act so strange?

[Pure]

esp. at election time?

Is this the answer?

anyone feeling the 'yuck' factor?

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/...ated-wastewater-used-for-drinking.html?ref=us

As ‘Yuck Factor’ Subsides, Treated Wastewater Flows From Taps

New York Times,
By FELICITY BARRINGER

Published: February 9, 2012

SAN DIEGO — Almost hidden in the northern hills, the pilot water treatment plant here does not seem a harbinger of revolution. It cost $13 million, uses long-established technologies and produces a million gallons a day. Purified water flowed from the tap at a treatment facility in San Diego. The city, which once rejected the approach in the face of public opposition, is now using some treated wastewater.

But the plant’s very existence is a triumph over one of the most stubborn problems facing the nation’s water managers: if they make clean drinking water from wastewater, will the yuck factor keep people from accepting it?

.[...]
Funneling reclaimed water into water supplies is being considered in a variety of communities like Miami and Denver (which has experimented with the technology), as well as in drought-ravaged municipalities in Texas like Big Spring. [...]

Still, just one-tenth of 1 percent of municipal wastewater nationally was recycled into local supplies in 2010. Only a handful of systems replenish their reservoirs or groundwater basins with treated wastewater.

The largest is in Orange County, Calif., about 100 miles north of San Diego, where a four-year-old system replenishes the groundwater basin with 70 million gallons of treated effluent daily — about 20 percent of the content of the aquifer. Other sites include El Paso and some areas around Los Angeles.

[...]
Globally, the largest population center to adopt the technology is Singapore, home to five million people. Officials say about 15 percent of its water originates from treated effluent, marketed as “NEWater.” Most is used for irrigation or manufacturing; some for drinking.

 

[AllardChardon]

About 10 years ago, I stayed in a low-income housing project in the City of Orange, because I was visiting a friend. I was the first one to wake up and decided to make some hot water for tea. I got a pot out and filled it with water from the tap. When it boiled, there was gray slime across the top. I turned it off and left it. I showed it to my friend when she woke up and asked what I did wrong. She said I didn't do anything wrong. "Just don't ever use the tap water to drink or make coffee." I didn't even want to take a shower in the stuff after that. And that was 10 years ago, I can only imagine what the water, if you can call it that, is like now.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Much improved if it passes current standards. In any case it couldn't possibly be as bad as the stuff Long Beach used to pump from its municipal wells. Long Beach sits on top of an old and still-producing oil field and the water smelled and tasted like roofing tar . . . or how I would imagine roofing tar to taste given the smell. Things are better, now.

 

[Pure]

i'm reminded of the old observation, i forget its author:

someday humans' civilization will have evolved to the point where they do not put shit into the drinking water sources, then make efforts to filter it back out.

 

[oggbashan]

If you visit London, the water goes around several times before joining the Thames on the way to the sea.

The quality of the water is as good as, or better than, most bottled water but when Coca Cola proposed to bottle and market London tap water they met serious opposition.

 

[Ironiclaconic]

Nature is the ultimate recycler. The water molecules you drink have been around for five billion years, swum in by trilobites, drunk and pissed out by dinosaurs, pumped through the blood vessels of Julius Caesar and crapped out and dumped in the Tiber. Nature doesn't care. The water filters through the earth, or gets evaporated into the air and enters the water cycle once more. Human filtration systems can clean out the gross stuff at least as well as dirt does.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

A lot of scientists believe that we're already in a water crisis, and that fresh water will be the oil of the 21st century - wars will be fought over it, populations will shift, a lot of people will die. It's estimated that the Oglala aquifer, the nation's largest, could dry up in 25 years, and a lot of rivers are going dry too as the snowpack that feeds them disappears. Waste-water reclamation seems pretty inevitable.

I don't have a problem with it. Astronauts have been drinking reprocessed pee for years (I wonder if it tastes like Tang?) and people have been spreading reprocessed human shit on their lawns and gardens for a long time. The city of Milwaukee sells its dried sewer sludge as a fertilizer under the brand name "Milorganite."

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Shit is our Greatest Resource!

 

[ishtat]

Re-processed water tastes like water Doc!

In Oz the water shortage has already arrived. Until mid 2011 the River Murray our most important water source in the south east hadn't flowed into the sea for 5 years - greedy and wasteful irrigators largely responsible. State governments made it worse by selling water rights and becoming dependent on them as a source of funds.

In Western Australia removal of native vegetation in the wheat belt has allowed the water table to rise bringing with it salt which has made thousands of acres infertile.

In Sydney we have Warragamba Dam which holds when full about 16 years supply. Problem is that it hasn't been full for over 10 years. Usually it hovers between 45% and 55% though it's 90% at the moment due to La Nina.

However during a drought about 7 years ago the NSW State government rejected the cheaper option of re-processing and spent $2.5 billion on de-salination instead. It started raining the day the plant was commissioned and hasn't stopped yet.

In our tropical North we have massive rain and flooding every wet season (November to March), but hardly any-one lives there.

 

[R. Richard]

[SAN DIEGO — Almost hidden in the northern hills, the pilot water treatment plant here does not seem a harbinger of revolution. It cost $13 million, uses long-established technologies and produces a million gallons a day. Purified water flowed from the tap at a treatment facility in San Diego. The city, which once rejected the approach in the face of public opposition, is now using some treated wastewater.

But the plant’s very existence is a triumph over one of the most stubborn problems facing the nation’s water managers: if they make clean drinking water from wastewater, will the yuck factor keep people from accepting it?]

The information almost certainly refers to the Santee Lakes. Santee is a separate city and not part of San Diego. The Santee Lakes sewage reprocessing system came about since Santee could no longer pay San Diego to process Santee's sewage. In desperation they created the Santee Lakes system.

 

[mynameisben]

Let them drink cake.

 

[autoplot]

"So let's get going, there's no other choice. God willing, we will prevail, in peace and freedom from fear, and in true health, through the purity and essence of our natural bodily fluids."

 

[Pure]

Update

The topic is apparently rather politically charged, in San Diego, but it's going ahead.
Just the title conveys a wee bit of hesitancy.

Indirect Potable Reuse Reservoir Augmentation Demonstration Project

The idea is that the severely treated wastewater is added to the reservoirs, mixed with the other water and allowed to stand for a few weeks. Hence the term 'augmentation'..
Apparenlty it's easier to sell people on 'try augmentation' than on 'drink purified poo water.'.

There are links to various reports at the end of the article below. Apparently the purified water passed a about a 100 different tests, and it at least as good as the normal stuff.


http://groksurf.com/ongoing-topics/indirect-potable-reuse/

Water Purification Demonstration Project (Indirect Potable Reuse)

“IPR is usually defined as the augmentation of a drinking water source (surface water or groundwater) with recycled water, followed by an environmental buffer that precedes normal drinking water treatment” (from Regulatory Aspects of Direct Potable Reuse in California, by the National Water Research Institute).


The latest in a series of attempts by the City of San Diego to use purified reclaimed water to bolster its reservoir suppy is a feasibility test going by the name Water Purification Demonstration Project (originally called the Indirect Potable Reuse Reservoir Augmentation Demonstration Project).

IPR has been a controversial topic in San Diego’s quest for new water resources (historically, Mayor Sanders opposed and even vetoed the project in 2007 but the Council overrode him). Public support for IPR has been growing, though, and will likely continue growing.

During the one-year test, 1 million gallons per day (MGD) of IPR water are produced. Small amounts of that are analyzed in the lab, with the remaining water blended back in with the tertiary outflow for delivery to recycled water customers.

The goal, if the demonstration project is successful, is to produce 16 million gallons per day of IPR water. The water would be piped to the San Vicente Reservoir where it would be blended with raw imported water. It would be allowed to age for a period of time, at least six months. After that period, reservoir water would be sent for final treatment at the Alvarado Water Treatment Plant prior to distribution.

====

earlier report

http://groksurf.com/2011/09/14/san-diego-water-reliability-coalition-launches-website/

San Diego Water Reliability Coalition launches website

Posted by George J. Janczyn on September 14, 2011

The Water Reliability Coalition (or WRC), an association of San Diego County environmental, technical, business, and ratepayer organizations formed to perform public outreach in support of Indirect Potable Reuse (IPR) research and development announced yesterday the launch of its new website at http://www.sdwatersupply.com/.

 

[TE999]

Someone could bottle that reclaimed water, add a little brown or yellow food coloring and market it to the crap eaters and piss freaks. They'd buy it by the case.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Vitalism is the philosophy that believes there's more to the food and drink we consume than science can see or measure. Vitalists believe there's a non-material animal (or vegetable) spirit in food that's affected by origin, handling, processing, etc.

Vitalism is alive and well today as the unspoken rationale behind a big chunk of the health and natural foods movement, and it seems to be especially prevalent in California. This could be a hard sell.

 

[Handley_Page]

This seems appropriate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz_-KNNl-no

Frightening; and funny !

 

[Angellica1612]

This seems appropriate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz_-KNNl-no

Frightening; and funny !

I almost didn't click on the link...am I ever glad I did! You made my day! I was raised on Tom Lehrer...my mom and I sang his songs daily, and used many of his lines. Are you a fan, or did you just stumble onto that clip?

 

[Handley_Page]

I almost didn't click on the link...am I ever glad I did! You made my day! I was raised on Tom Lehrer...my mom and I sang his songs daily, and used many of his lines. Are you a fan, or did you just stumble onto that clip?

I have been a fan of his for longer than I care to think.
At one time, only "Fight fiercely, Harvard" was permitted on the BBC radio. When a (married) cousin got one of the LPs, it made my day; 'Poisoning pigeons in the park', 'I hold your hand in mine' and the rest had me in stitches.

 

[Angellica1612]

I have been a fan of his for longer than I care to think.
At one time, only "Fight fiercely, Harvard" was permitted on the BBC radio. When a (married) cousin got one of the LPs, it made my day; 'Poisoning pigeons in the park', 'I hold your hand in mine' and the rest had me in stitches.

I'm in heaven! I've never met a fan other than my mother. Tom was awesome and way before his time. I could quote the entire "An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer" album, word for word, I listened to it so many times. It's hard to pick favorites, but Oedipus Rex, The Christmas Song, We Shall All Go Together, The Great Lobachevsky...I did say it was hard to pick a favorite, didn't I? Just thinking of them brings back so many memories and makes me smile.

Thanks again, you really did make my day. I looked up to heaven and said to Mom, "Look! I found a Tom Lehrer fan!"