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Texas Town Turns To Treated Sewage For Drinking Water
Scientific American reports that Wichita Falls, Texas has taken an unusual step, precipitated by the years-long drought that Texas has faced: it's using treated sewage for drinking water. From the article:
To launch what it calls its "Direct Potable Reuse Project," the city pipes water 12 miles from its wastewater treatment plant to this treatment facility where it goes through microfiltration. A pump pulls water through a module filled with fibers that removes most of the impurities. Then it is forced through a semi-permeable membrane that can remove dissolved salts and other contaminants. The process, called reverse osmosis, is used by the U.S. military, in ships and in the manufacture of silicon chips. The water then gets blended with lake water before going through the regular water treatment system. ... At 60 cents per 1,000 gallons, it's far cheaper than any other source of water, [Wichita Falls' public works director Russell] Schreiber said. ... He said there have been few complaints so far. A glass of the finished product, sampled at a downtown restaurant, tasted about average for West Texas.
No, they filter the shit out. The water doesn't remember shit.
This really isn't much different than what nature would have ultimately done with the water right? Just accelerated mechanically. Not much different than what we would have to do for long duration space travel or colonization either.
not like the wild animals and fish don't piss and shit into our water
The concern is not piss and shit --- it's synthetic chemicals, such as rubbing alcohol, medications, petrol/motor oil, ethylene glycol; pesticides, fertilizer, and materials containing heavy metals or other toxins, that folks sometimes flush down the drain.
Some of these chemicals may be non-particulant, solvate in water, and have similar physical properties that water has.
Since you need to treat sewage before putting it in the ground, and ground water before putting it in the water supply, what is new about connecting those two points? Do people think the sewage magically stops being sewage once it leaves the system?
The wild animals don't tend to piss and shit birth control hormones and other still quite bioactive medications.
I just know there's a homeopathy joke in there somewhere...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Assuming the process is something akin to the Groundwater Replenishment System in Orange County, CA, those shouldn't be a major problem. I'm too lazy to look up the treatment plant in this story, but I'd guess that the article leaves out a few steps in the treatment process, including some sort of advanced oxidation process. At the GWRS in CA, that would be a hydrogen peroxide / UV step that oxidizes the crap out of anything that might make its way through the RO process -- which isn't much, except for possibly neutrally charged, small molecules. Further, it if it's a well run wastewater collection system, there should be source control measures in place to minimize a lot of nasty stuff, like heavy metals and toxins, as that throws off advanced wastewater treatment processes as well.
Because all the fish, crustaceans, sea mammals and every damn thing else in the oceans, rivers, lakes, and reservoirs of the world climb out to take a leak or a dump.
Start thinking. You've been drinking recycled shit and piss since the day you were born.
I just know there's a homeopathy joke in there somewhere...
Yeah, a crappy one.
A homeopath might tell you so, but there isn't really.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Or just plain ol activated charcoal. My sailboat has an RO system with a charcoal canister that I replace twice a year. Bigger systems have more complex pre filters. I'm sure that the system in TFA is at least cleaner than any river water or shallow well system. Possibly not as pure as a deep artesian system but if it passes EPA criteria, it's going to be pretty clean.
Really Slashdot, RO systems are old hat. You can buy them on Ebay. Soon they'll be in breakfast cereal.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"Don't know about memory but reverse osmosis water certainly does contain some of the pharmaceuticals you crapped out."
Uh, considering the membrane has pores small enough to remove a sodium ion, and pretty much every pharmaceutical made is much larger than a single sodium ion, good luck getting through the filter.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
not like the wild animals and fish don't piss and shit into our water
The concern is not piss and shit --- it's synthetic chemicals, such as rubbing alcohol, medications, petrol/motor oil, ethylene glycol; pesticides, fertilizer, and materials containing heavy metals or other toxins, that folks sometimes flush down the drain.
Some of these chemicals may be non-particulant, solvate in water, and have similar physical properties that water has.
My local water company sends out an annual quality report and I'm pretty sure that the stats they report include information on levels of most of these. And we're getting ours mostly from a deep aquifer.
A glass of the finished product, sampled at a downtown restaurant, tasted about average for West Texas.
So the water tastes like shit. Good to know.
Finding God in a Dog
I'm a resident of WF (and had to dig up a years-old account to login although I do read frequently but never comment much, so apologies for the cheap-shot url username).. The new water is supposedly on, but I can't tell a difference.
It's strange to me that there is all that much of a fuss with the locals, considering the fact that the process prior to this required treatment of said wastewater and greywater that was eventually let back out into the ordinary water table, became grimy with exposed air and otherwise ground contaminants, and was just filtered back to the city again through the lakes all over again anyway.
When suggested that there was no telling how many people had drowned in the lakes, how many cars had been run off the road into them and rusted over and still leaking gasoline and oil, and not to mention how many dead animals and super-toxic algae were present in the lake in the first place that we were "drinking" before this new filtered idea came about, they tend to clam up (perhaps from being grossed out by my description).
The city put out a lovely and sciencey YouTube video (which is now a year old), interviewing local chemists and otherwise credible local water experts who examined the setup and offered their input on it, here, for those interested in some of the more technical aspects. I've tried to link to it in most discussions I find online, but even still there are only 2790 views currently, out of a city of 100k+ pop, which is perhaps indicative of how terrible of a PR team our city does genuinely have. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MKrU1yi5Yc
Possibly the biggest local water controversy aside from the "poo-water" issue is how our city operates a water park, of all things. Supposedly it creates more profit that investment and is using outside, trucked-in water that is filtered and recirculated within its own closed system, but that doesn't stop torrents of naysayers leaping at every opportunity to inject it as shitstorm material, instantly derailing any city-admin discussion.
False. Water memory, a form of homeopathy, has been around since 1796, long pre-dating understanding of molecules. The idea of water memory comes from people who start with a conclusion, and grab random scientific jargon to supply "evidence". It's like science, but backwards and nonsensical. The specific "facts" people use to sell their fake cureall potions change over the years depending on what scientific buzzwords are popular at the time.
The only brain membrane that is of concern is the one that let's out greed driven bad ideas. The biggest risk with attempting to recycle storm water and sewerage as drinking water are right wing thinkers and cost saving or profit gaining short cuts. By far the majority of places when they attempt this do not do it as drinking water only as irrigation water, reason why, risk. The risk is enormous, you just have to keep in mind some extremely dangerous water borne diseases and just one system failure and now that whole town ends up with that disease, town goes bankrupt as a result of civil suit. I will be interested to see if they can get insurance coverage for this idea and how much it will cost. Personally based upon Texan ideal for taking money saving or profit gaining ring wing short cuts I'd be moving out rather than taking that chance.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
For all practical purposes and time scales it doesn't.
Just let it flow.