Water-Reuse Projects Move Forward, Despite Concerns
WICHITA FALLS — The idea of turning treated sewage into drinking water may give some people pause.
But with lake levels dropping below 40 percent of capacity as of Tuesday, this one-time oil boomtown plans to move ahead with the technology. The city hopes to produce 5 million gallons of water a day next year with potable reuse technology, which officials say is safe.
“There was probably a lot of reservations about reuse water projects when we first discussed it in the late ’90s,” Mayor Glenn Barham said. Now, with the drought, he said people have “realized we’ve got to ...
Comments (12)
Dormand Long
It is critical that we face facts of the scientific realities of the natural cycle of water.
As fresh water is only some 3% of the water on the planet, virtually every drop of water you drink
( except that frozen in polar ice packs for centuries ) has been "through the horse" so to speak several times over the millions of years.
However nasty a container of water may have been at one point in time, from a scientific standpoint, if there is a total absence of contaminants in a given unit of water, it is clean enough to drink.
Think of a NASA space vehicle. If they did not recycle water, it would require gigantic tanks of water to meet the physical needs of the crew during the mission. That would never get off the ground.
Dean Kaman's lab has developed a machine with such effective filtration and cleansing capacity that it can produce clear and clean from the most polluted water on earth. Once they have progress ed in value engineering, this process will solve many problems in areas like SubSaharan Africa.
We must fully explore the full potential of recycling sewage water, unless there is a sudden reversal of both Canada and Oklahoma on sharing their vast glut of fresh water, which currently flows down rivers into the oceans. That probably will not happen during my lifetime.
The root cause of our water shortage problem is the early pricing fatal flaw. It was determined in the beginning that water should be priced at such a low price that there was absolutely no incentive for users to conserve it.
If water were priced at its cost, many of our problems would go away.
In 'Texas, a massive portion of our fresh water is used to keep lawns in a lush and vibrant condition.
If one were to study the best practice application of Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winner Richland College in Northeast Dallas, s/he would see heavily utilized turf that is green and foot traffic tolerant native Buffalo grass. This has been in place for three decades and not irrigated once, Richland has saved a fortune in the expenses that less well managed schools are burdened with in their mowing of their grass expanses.
Native Buffalo grass is both slow growing and drought tolerant and is incredibly tough in heavy foot traffic scenarios.
Much of our water crisis could be mitigated with the simple solution of motivating homeowners to plant native Buffalo grass in their lawns, replacing the existing thirsty Bermuda or St. Augustine turf
which has to be mowed and irrigated weekly. If one annualizes the cost of traditional lawns vs. the plant it and forget it native Buffalo grass alternative, it is like getting an annuity.
To motivate homeowners to have native Buffalo grass put in their lawns, one alternative would be for the water utility to front the full cost of the planting and to let the homeowner amortize that cost over a year. The homeowners savings from not having to either have the lawn mowed or to irrigate the lawn should cover the monthly amortization of the Buffalo grass installation.
It is critical also to discourage excessive landscape watering via tiered pricing for water.
There should be a low base rate for the amount of water that a fully water-wise household would use, Above that level, there should be substantial increases in pricing at each of three additional
volume tiers to the point that a wastrel will be paying a fortune in water bills each month.
The City of Dallas is one entity that has implemented this innovative tiered pricing scenario.
Our water crisis is one superb scenario for a robust "best practices management" infrastructure, where there would be the widest sharing of information on the most effective protocols on producing a critical mass of potable water.
Much of our problem is that we have massive reinvention of the wheel, with each municipality
operating like a lemming in its own "silo" oblivious of innovations proven to be effective and feasible elsewhere on the globe,
We could enjoy massive savings and substantial increases in the available supply of potable water by continually improving to what the best practice management protocols are in water management.
One simple protocol is to address the leaking water main problem. In some cities, much of the purified and treated municipal water leaks out of the antiquated pipes. This leaked water then undermines the substructure of roads, causing road surface failure.
There is a well established technology in which pipe liners are inserted into the water mains in pliable form. When the pliable liner is inserted in the pipe, it is expanded via air pressure to adhere to the pipe contours, creating a waterproof seal that eliminates the leaks.
Our key problem is that too many of those in the decision making positions have the mind set of
"but that's the way that we have always done it" instead of embracing best practices management.
raffaele cafagna
@Dormand Long ; you speak like a Professor or a NASA Engineer ; my question is : you don`t say anything about a Desalination Plant ; how come ???? I believe it would be the * SOLUTION * of all problems . The idea of turning treated sewage into drinking water , how safe is it ??? Don`t discard a malfunction , a mistake or accident and the results could be a Disaster.
Jesse R. Ayala via Texas Tribune on Facebook
the best way to ensure safe drinking water is to keep shit out of it, not putting more shit in it.
Luisa Inez Newton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The technology works, so we should use it, but we should also spend "Rainy Day" money on infrastructure--leaking pipes all over the state waste millions of gallons--and sponsoring rain water collection for every household. And forget about reservoirs because too much water evaporates in Texas heat
Terry Bradley via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Don't frack with my drinking water.
Guy Robert Jackson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
If reclaimed drinking water is good enough for our astronauts it should be good enough for us.
Johnny Hughes via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Ask them if they know what the word longitudinal means.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Fresh water is finite and is difficult to transport. In the City of Houston, they lose at least 40% of the water once it enters the distribution system. There are at least 900 reported broken mains at anyone time. We need to find a way to store water, transport water and new water sources like reuse and desalination inorder to meet our future needs.
Dormand Long
Rafeale is absolutely correct, desalination should have been mentioned, as it is quite feasible in many scenarios. As the cost drops below the current $2.00 per thousand cubic feet, it will increasingly be used.
There are two primary constraints on desalination given the current technology: a ) the cost of the energy to drive the desalination plant and b ) the disposal of the salt extracted during the desalination process.
In some scenarios, water is worth more than gold, and thus the energy cost is almost irrelevant. For example, if you were a Hurricane Katrina refugee in the Super Dome in August, 2005 and your family had not had anything to drink for two days, what price would you have been willing to pay for water? Everything is relative.
In that misery at the Super Dome, the agony was unneccary, as the Walmart Disaster Relief Center had dispatched three 40 foot trailers filled to the brim with pallet of bags of ice and pallets of bottled water.
While the elderly and infants wailed in agony from their oppressive thirst, the Homeland Security armed guards at the blockade outside New Orleans stopped the Walmart relief convoy headed to the Super Dome and refused to allow it to enter the hurricane zone.
The diligent bureaucrat with Homeland Security refused entry to the 3 truck relief convoy from the Walmart Disaster Relief Center.
Why, you ask?
The convoy leader did not have the form Homeland Security calls a "checker" which certifies that a vehicle has the authorization to enter a zone protected by Homeland Security.
We really cannot allow just anyone to go waltzing into a storm zone without the proper papers, can we??? That would be totally uncivilized.
Isn't government wonderful? Sometimes the possession of authority is abused.
I suggest that the families crying out for water for their elderly and their infants in the Super Dome might feel that this was a case of abuse and misuse of authority.
The convoy from Walmart turned around and took their three 40 foot trailers of bags of ice and bottles of water back to the Walmart distribution center.
It is important for you to let your elected officials know in writing when you feel that your government
has made a poor choice.
Aka Lisa Douglas
If you have to rely on cleaning up your effluent to meet your drinking water needs today, what will you rely on tomorrow?
Instead of discussing whether or not cleaning up effluent is safe, we should be discussing just when population growth enters the debate.
Hopefully before we hear, excuse me neighbor, can you flush? My kids are thirsty and it's time for my allotted weekly shower.
Aka Lisa Douglas
BTW, I do have to wonder if the technology removes pharmaceuticals.I've read they come through the desalination process when the plants are near where treated wastewater is dumped in the ocean.
richard schumacher
Once they know that they'll be drinking it later I expect that people will be more careful about what they pour into their toilets and drains. No fuel waste, organic solvents or expired medicines, please.