California Likely To Reuse Sewage Water For 'Toilet To Tap' Source Of Drinking Water

Reeling under a four-year drought, California is considering reuse of potable water, or converting sewage effluent into heavily-treated, purified drinking water, according to rt.

Although the "yuck" factor might put off many, it has been used for decades in Windhoek, Namibia - where evaporation rates are more than annual rainfall and also recently in drought-stricken Texas cities, including Big Spring and Wichita Falls, according to the Los Angeles Times.

"California water managers and environmentalists" are drawn to the idea of recycled sewage water. However, past efforts for this stopped, even as opponents call it "toilet to tap."

This spring, California Governor Jerry Brown ordered a 25 percent cut in urban water usage, due to drought.

Advocates of the system feel that they could convert "hundreds of billions of gallons of treated sewage" that goes into the Pacific Ocean into drinking water.

"That water is discharged into the ocean and lost forever," Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, told the LA Times. "Yet it's probably the single largest source of water supply for California over the next quarter-century."

Hence, the water will first go to an "advanced treatment plant" for a three-step "purification process".

The water is sent through a microfilter to block particles or bacteria, then filtrated by reverse osmosis, after which it is "forced through a membrane" blocking pharmaceuticals, viruses, and other materials. Finally, ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide can break pathogens or organic compounds.

After that, the water would be sent to a traditional water treatment facility so that it can integrate with other water sources. Hence, the system leads to storing clean water in bottles, according to water reuse advocate WateReuse California.

Hence, experts feel that potable reuse could lead upto 1.1 million acre-feet of water annually by 2020.

However, opponents are worried that there might be drug compounds, hormones, and personal care products in effluent water.

"Personally I would not drink water that has been recycled through the toilet to tap process," Steven Oppenheimer, a biology professor at Cal State Northridge, told the Times.

On the other hand, supporters of potable reuse claim that even now, there are more than 200 wastewater treatment plants that release sewage effluent into the Colorado River, which is the primary source of drinking water for California.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation actively funds projects that improve global water and sanitation. Recently, Bill Gates was shot drinking water cleaned by his project, the OmniProcessor, which burns human waste to produce electricity and water.