California Gets Past the Yuck Factor With "Toilet To Tap" Water Recycling

HughPickens.com writes: From a marketing point of view, using treated sewage to create drinking water is a proposition that has proved difficult to sell to customers. Now John Schwartz writes in the NYT that as California scrambles for ways to cope with its crippling drought and the mandatory water restrictions imposed last month by Gov. Jerry Brown, enticing people to drink recycled water is requiring California residents to get past what experts call the "yuck" factor. Efforts in the 1990s to develop water reuse in San Diego and Los Angeles were beaten back by activists who denounced what they called, devastatingly, "toilet to tap." Orange County swung people to the idea of drinking recycled water with a special purification plant which has been operating since 2008 avoiding a backlash with a massive public relations campaign that involved more than 2,000 community presentations. The county does not run its purified water directly into drinking water treatment plants; instead, it sends the water underground to replenish the area's aquifers and to be diluted by the natural water supply. This environmental buffer seems to provide an emotional buffer for consumers as well.

In 2000, Los Angeles actually completed a sewage reclamation plant capable of providing water to 120,000 homes — the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys.The plan was abandoned after public outrage. Angelenos, it seemed, were too good to drink perfectly safe recycled water — dismissed as "toilet to tap." But Los Angeles is ready to try again, with plans to provide a quarter of the city's needs by 2024 with recycled water and captured storm water routed through aquifers. "The difference between this and 2000 is everyone wants this to happen," says Marty Adams. The inevitable squeamishness over drinking water that was once waste ignores a fundamental fact, says George Tchobanoglous: "When it comes down to it, water is water. Everyone who lives downstream on a river is drinking recycled water."

Comments

"an emotional buffer for consumers as well."

[Nutria]

God damned pussies.

Leaders are -- occasionally -- supposed to actually lead. And that means pushing through unpopular items that are actually good for the citizenry.

Re:"an emotional buffer for consumers as well."

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> democracy and a basically stupid and anti-science population

I agree, but if you ever try to advocate for democracy participation qualifiers to weed out the stupid (e.g., high school graduate, X years of work experience, at least XX years old, living independently, having your own ID, passing some kind of literacy test) and all you'll hear is "racist", "elitist" and stories about poll taxes.

Re:"an emotional buffer for consumers as well."

[Noah Haders]

here's the problem with targeting the 70+% users. did you know that only 20% of water in CA goes to residential, commercial and industrial sources? 80% of water is used by agriculture, who has powerful lobbies and locks on several state senators and assemblymen. Did you know that in CA some farmers grow rice? Some grow parsley, which is almost as water intensive as rice and is bundled up as hay and sent off to china to feed Chinese cows? And despite this, farmers are a third rail of water politics, and instead people are putting flyers on MY door encouraging me to "minimize toilet flushing" and now to drink pee water. No thanks.

Re:"an emotional buffer for consumers as well."

[Noah Haders]

nah. here's your breakdown.
* "1/3" goes back into the groundwater." [citation needed]. I don't think it's self evident that just cuz some water soaks into crops and isn't used by the plants it goes back to the groundwater.
* "1/3 goes into rain and falls on the foothills." or it falls in Arizona, or Kansas, or the pacific ocean. There's no reason to think that evaporation stays in-state.
* "1/3 goes into my belly". Or into your belly, or Chinese belly, or shucked and thrown away. We're exporting water out of the state.

I will "minimize my toilet flushing" when the state enacts commonsense crop rationing methods that emphasize water-efficient crops over water-wasting crops.

Re:I don't see why people are so childish on it

[Karmashock]

What would you consider proof?

I'm always baffled by people that ask for proof on things without bothering to state what they would consider valid evidence. I'm sure I could get you a report from some scientists and engineers that said it was safe. But I'm rather certain you wouldn't accept that as evidence.

Which means I'm somewhat at a loss as to what you even mean when you ask for proof? Theoretically, what could I possibly say or post or provide that you would accept and then say "okay, I accept it is safe"?

As to proving safety versus inferring it... that is a good point, however, I'll point out that if they're wrong millions of people are going to get very sick very quickly.

So I frankly doubt they're cutting too many corners with the safety because if they do... politicians might literally go to jail. Which is normally almost impossible.