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Drought-Stricken Texas Town Taps Urine For Water

Posted by samzenpus on from the it's-important-to-stay-hydrated dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Texas is in the midst of a drought so severe that local water management teams have decided to distribute reclaimed wastewater (aka urine). The Colorado River Municipal Water District in West Texas has broken ground on a $13 million plant that will capture treated wastewater and ready it for redistribution. After being run through microfilters and undergoing reverse osmosis, slimy sewage is cleansed with peroxide and ultraviolet light. This intense process ensures that any pharmaceuticals and carcinogens are removed, and that the H2O stands up to drinking water regulations."

18 of 300 comments (clear)

  1. If your town gets its water from a river... by bmo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...then you're drinking filtered sewage anyway.

    Not news.

    --
    BMO

    1. Re:If your town gets its water from a river... by Golddess · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What I find even more amusing are the people who are all "eww yuck" over stories about recycling urine for drinking, and then go on to consume an alcoholic beverage (aka, yeast urine).

      --
      "I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
  2. Already used on space missions? by DJRumpy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I assume this is similar to recycling systems used for space missions? Don't they also recycle waste for H20?

    1. Re:Already used on space missions? by hal2814 · · Score: 4, Funny

      They should bottle and market it. First we had astronaut ice cream. Now we have astronaut water!

    2. Re:Already used on space missions? by Duradin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      People would probably be rather suspicious of the sudden increase of its quality.

  3. About time. by cusco · · Score: 5, Informative

    About bloody time that some city in the US starts doing this. Did you know that the outflow from the Los Angeles sewage treatment plant is actually cleaner than the water that they pump (at ridiculous cost) over the mountains to the potable water intake?

    The capital of Botswana has been doing this since the 1960s. Nice to know that Texas is finally catching up to sub-Saharan Africa.

    --
    "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    1. Re:About time. by ATestR · · Score: 3, Informative

      Don't know what he means in this particular case, but when engineers talks about contaminants in water, they are usually talking about bacterial counts as well as nitrates and other dissolved compounds. Sanitary waste water (in most of US) has to be cleaned to certain standards as far as bacterial counts as well as nitrate levels before it can be released to streams/rivers, or reused as "reclaimed" water, usually for irrigation.

      Any water used for water systems (drinking water) must be cleaned to an even higher standard before use. Unless you source is a mountain spring (not a creek!), you are almost certain to have to process it before use. The original poster's point was that often the incoming water is less sanitary than the discharge water of a sewage treatment plant.

      Come to think of it, I saw a documentary about the canal/pipe system that supplies LA a few weeks ago. I can readily believe that that water isn't too clean.

      --
      âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
    2. Re:About time. by CannonballHead · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just as a note, please don't judge the rest of the US based on LA. Or SF. Or NY.

      It'd be like us basing our view of Europe based on ... London.

      In fact, a lot of CA has pretty normal people. LA and SF are just weird, overpopulated... LA especially, there's tons of urban sprawl in the middle of basically a desert. I don't get it.

  4. Fish have been shitting in my water for years by elrous0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Like your drinking water isn't already the toilet for fish, birds, and god-knows what other wildlife. Get over yourself, Sally.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  5. Rick Peery Ad by sgt+scrub · · Score: 3, Funny

    See! Were having to drink our own piss. Do you really want Rick Peery for president?!?

    --
    Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
  6. Lack of strategic planning by scarboni888 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's amazing to me that this type of thing only gets implemented due to a crisis when it should be obvious from the get go that developing and improving the methods of recycling and reclamation should always be part of the way we do anything.

    1. Re:Lack of strategic planning by vlm · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's amazing to me that this type of thing only gets implemented due to a crisis when it should be obvious from the get go that developing and improving the methods of recycling and reclamation should always be part of the way we do anything.

      Not everywhere...

      I'm currently sitting less than a mile upwind of one of the great lakes... The energy requirement for this sewage filtration process has a far larger environmental impact than just regular sewage treatment combined with pumping a bit more water out of the lake. We could probably reduce out draw out of the lake 50% with this technology, at the mere cost of kilotons of extra fly ash and mercury dumped into the lake from our coalburners ... the same lake we're getting our drinking water out of...

      California / desert SW solutions are not appropriate everywhere. If anything, on average, east of the mississippi river, we have way too much fresh water and need to focus tech on dealing with floods caused by rain. Much like fixing failing school systems or sick care systems, just dumping more money on the problem doesn't seem to help.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
  7. Troll headline? by zygotic+mitosis · · Score: 3, Informative

    Urine? Well, yes, but also the feces and the nasty water from industry. As someone has pointed out already, if your WTP collects from the river, you are already drinking treated sewage water.

    At our plant, we have a water reclamation facility at the end of our process, the same type of facility used at the water treatment plant upstream. A WRF is common, iirc, in CA, but is, afaik, the first of its kind here in MN. It is far more common to discharge without the additional filtering and contaminant removal provided by a WRF.

    The water we discharge is tested biweekly for ammonia and phosphorus and daily for total coliforms and biological oxygen demand. Ammonia and coliforms are non-detectable ~99% of the time. We are doing a very good job turning sewage into drinking water for the next town on the river.

    /lab intern at a WWTP

  8. Draining a Reservoir by CWCheese · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And in Portland, they drain an entire reservoir after one guy takes a leak
    http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2011/06/16/Reservoir-drained-due-to-urine/UPI-10781308249177/

    --
    Have a Day!
  9. They should ask South Africa for help by silentcoder · · Score: 4, Interesting

    South Africa, being a dry country, has been doing this for years. All sewage gets sent to treatment farms, where it is cleaned, and the water from it are then placed back in the river systems from where it is used for irrigation, drinking water and everything else - just like rain water.

    South Africa also boasts that the water from the treatment plants are cleaner than rain water. My father is an electrical engineer and helped design one of the plants (the electrical systems obviously). The process is quite spectacular - and moreso than what is described here. For starters the first phase includes the sewage being cleaned by specially cultured bacteria to break it down, before chemical cleaning, filtering etc. step by step turns it back into pure H20.
    The two main waste products from the process is methane and solid waste. The solid waste is used to create fertilizers. The methane is burned off (being a clean-burning gas) but quite a few people here have converted their cars to run on methane (any gasoline car can be converted) and fill up there - for the moment at least (since the demand is pretty low and they have massive amounts they need to get rid off) the sewage treatment farms don't even charge them. Fill up the car, no cost.

    --
    Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
  10. This is nothing new by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Informative

    Arizona has been doing this for a long time. For the most part, the water treatment is less intense and it is distributed through a separate, non-potable system to be used for irrigation. Makes sense since it is cheaper (requires less filtration). However some of it is filtered further, and mixed in with water from wells and the CAP to go in to the drinking water.

  11. Far from first... by __aazsst3756 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Chanute, KS was the first in the US, from October 14th 1956 to March 14th, 1957. The water met microbial standards of the time, but was discontinued as soon as possible due to public acceptance.

    Windhoek, the capital of the Republic of Namibia (Sahara desert) recycles about 30% of their water to supply a population of 300,000 residents. They started in 1968.

    Not common, but far from a new idea.

  12. Re:Drinking wanter? by The+Grim+Reefer2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Does it the water burn when it gets out the tap?

    Only if your faucet has Gonorrhea. ;-)