Secure California's future water supply and invest in recycled water (Commentary)

[Auggie]

calmatters.org

Climate change is forcing our state to reimagine our water supply future. How do we do that? Easy — we reuse water.

Just like recycling a plastic bottle, we can safely use recycled water to drink, irrigate parks, support environmental uses, grow crops, produce energy, and much more. More than just a new source of water, water recycling projects provide a degree of local water independence.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature are considering a drought funding package this summer that will use some of the budget surplus to mitigate drought effects and prepare our state for our new water-scarce future. The governor and the Legislature need to continue their commitment to recycled water by making a significant investment of at least $500 million in the package.

With recycled water, California communities don’t have to rely on imported water, which can be cut off during severe droughts or a serious earthquake. As climate change accelerates, we must continue to prepare for more extreme weather patterns, higher temperatures, stressed ecosystems and increasing competition for water. Historically, most of our water has come from snowpack or groundwater, but it’s not that simple anymore.

MORE: https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/07/secure-californias-future-water-supply-and-invest-in-recycled-water/

Thoughts? One of mine is to insist recycling operations are run and owned by the public, not corporations or private equity.

[quaint]

1. Public ownership would be great, but it needs doing regardless.

I'm in a water district that includes a large, private golf course.
They purchase cheaper reclaimed water, not available for home yards.
I sprinkle my dirt to stop it blowing.

Read Water Quality Control Policy for Recycled Water but...

[AllaN01Bear]

2. we also need to put in place and keep in place water rationing and water conservation means .

[quaint]

3. So true!

The drought never ended but mandatory conservation did. I could grow rice in my backyard, if I could afford it.

[awesomerwb1]

4. What about

desalination plants as well?

[Auggie]

6. A mix of responses are likely necessary. Including desalination.

The process is currently expensive and leaves a large carbon footprint, though one would hope technology can soon solve or mitigate these issues.

Conservation (as noted upthread), increased storage capacities, consumer incentives, and best farming practices (including payments to farmers to NOT grow water-wasting crops) are responses that come to mind.

[hunter]

8. Burning natural gas to desalinate water is insane...

... even with supplemental wind and solar power.

Burning fossil fuels got us into this mess, burning more fossil fuels is not going to get us out of it.

When you find yourself stuck in a hole, stop digging.

We've probably worked ourselves into a corner where nuclear powered desalinization plants are the only way forward.

That will require the construction of nuclear power plants that are inherently safe and the training of impeccably honest and competent people to build and run them.

Welcome to the twenty-first century where science matters.

Urban users can generally afford desalinated water for interior use but maybe not for exterior landscaping or swimming pools.

It costs a penny to flush a toilet with desalinated water. The energy costs for a hot shower are at least four or five times greater than the cost of desalinated water, so the water cost is negligible.

Most farmers in arid environments couldn't afford to water their crops with desalinated water directly, but maybe by an accounting sleight-of-hand they could persist using water reclaimed from urban areas.

Many of the farms where I live use reclaimed water from the purple pipes.

[hunter]

7. Our sewage gets recycled...

... into near-potable water that's used to water crops, and potable water that used to recharge local aquifers.

Secondary effluent is treated with ozone to destroy microorganisms and break down most contaminants, goes through a 0.1 micron membrane filtration process, and then reverse osmosis. The final water stream is treated with ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide.

Cities throughout the arid Southwestern U.S.A. could be doing this. It's not an impossible dream, such systems are installed and running in many places throughout the world.

I agree with you. A lot can go wrong when sewage treatment is privatized. Here's a horror story from England:

UK Water Companies Pour Shit Into The Sea...

As the court documents show, the company knew it ran the risk of big fines, but calculated that they would cost less than upgrading its plants and treating the sewage. Even now, this calculation may have been vindicated. Hiding its discharges saved it more than £90m in penalties, even before the huge savings it made by failing to upgrade its infrastructure are taken into account. So while the £90m fine and the £126m penalty imposed by the Water Services Regulation Authority, Ofwat, were heralded as “massive” and explained as “deterrents”, I don’t see them as either. The occasional prosecution, which holds an amorphous thing called the corporation – rather than any human being – liable, seems to be treated by water companies as a business cost.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jul/13/water-companies-britain-seas-sewage-fines-environment-agency

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127146572

This corporation deliberately diverted sewage into the ocean to increase their profits and was fined an amount that was less than the profits they made.

And nobody went to jail.

You definitely don't want that sort of thing happening with your recycled drinking water.

Alas, corrupt and incompetent public agencies can be just as bad...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis

Personally I think the "Reagan Revolution" turned the U.S.A. into an increasingly corrupt "CAN'T DO" nation.

If we want nice things we have to pay for them by investing in our young people, training them to be excellent scientists, engineers, and technicians, and being ever-vigilant to root out corruption.

[Merlot]

9. "Just like recycling a plastic bottle" - actually, recycling plastic isn't an option

Most plastic bottles and containers (including grocery clamshells) aren't recyclable. And even if they were, what to do with the recycled plastic? No one wants it. And in the mean time, the oil companies are investing heavily in producing plastic so that when the inevitable happens and we use more electric than fossil fuels, they will still be able to wreck the planet to make profits.

I agree that water recycling operations must be run and owned by the public. Good on Newsom for being so forward thinking on this issue. Just don't compare it to plastic recycling which is a scam (I know that's in the article, not the poster).