peepee water

[charlie knighton]

Parched Texas town turns to sewage water to keep city flush with waterhttp://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/d/0c/d0c3eb8ca18907492a4b337b5cec5193.jpeg (http://www.reuters.com/) By By Marice Richter 1 hour ago





By Marice Richter



DALLAS (Reuters) - When the going got tough due one of with worst droughts in a century, the parched Texas city of Wichita Falls got going with its program to recycle sewage water for drinking.
The city this month opened the spigots on a $13 million system that mixes 5 million gallons a day of treated waste water with area lake water to keep drinking water flowing for its 105,000 residents.
Convincing them to drink it is another matter.
"Everyone I know is buying bottled water," said Ronna Prickett, co-owner of Polka-Dot Penguin gift shop.
"People at the city have been telling us to have faith in the system but there is a stigma attached."
The reservoirs that serve Wichita Falls, about 100 miles northwest of Dallas, have dropped below 25 percent of their capacity and are expected to run dry in two years.
Residents said the treated water is clear but a bit soapy tasting.
While other areas have recycled waste water for years, Wichita Falls bills its plan as a pioneering program for a U.S. city of its size to treat household sewage and pump it directly back to residents.
Other cities facing shortages have been keeping a close eye on the program in case they have to adopt similar measures.
"The water is now cleaner and clearer than the water that came just from our lakes," said City Manager Darron Leiker.
The system has been thoroughly tested and carefully monitored to make sure the water stays clean, he said.
The city that bakes under the hot Texas sun has banned lawn watering to save water. It has tried to seed clouds to bring about rain and use chemicals in reservoirs to slow evaporation.
"We don't have any alternative sources. We don't have ground water. We can't build a pipeline to a reservoir that is close to us," said Russell Schreiber, the city's director of public works.
But Sabrina Hayes said in a letter to the local Wichita Falls Times Record News she had no plans to drink the water.
"I do not wish to come into any contact with what we refer to as 'peepee' water," Hayes wrote in a letter to the editor.
(Reporting by Marice Richter; Editing by Jon Herskovitz and Eric Beech)

SWAT might have to wait

[John Pratt]

Welcome to the Southwest. Luckily we haven't had to go that far just yet (I am 45 minutes north of Wichita Falls).

[Prashun Patel]

I heard a very enlightening Radio Lab podcast on this subject.
New York City used to dump its sewage into the Hudson until 1975. Over the next decade+ they started treating and speed-composting the waste underground. The fully processed waste is tested, safe, and clean for composting. They tried to sell the fully composted solids to different states, but nobody close by would take it. Hence perfectly good food-growing compost is now just buried near by. (Colorado was buying it for a while and had record crop yields, but it was too expensive to ship that far).

Eventually, we will have no choice but to drink and eat recycled waste. The guy who figures out how to market this truth will be a tycoon. For the rest of us, the sooner we get over ourselves, the better.

[Raymond Fries]

Yuck! That does not sound safe to me. I am glad we have a reverse osmosis system in our home. Water is so precious.

I would be interested to know if any big company like Nestle has a water facility in Texas. There have been reports of areas where Nestle pumps the water for their bottling operations and it actually lowers the water tables making it difficult for the residents to get water; Pakistan is one example. I am sure that Nestle is ready to sell it back to any that have the money. Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, their global CEO was quoted as saying in a televised interview that water was not a human right and it is a commodity that should be sold. Really?

I read sometime back that I believe it was Coke that was ordered to stop pumping operations at one of their water plants because of lowering the water tables.

Good Luck with the clean water. Hope it really is safe.

[Charles Wiggins]

Eventually, we will have no choice but to drink and eat recycled waste. The guy who figures out how to market this truth will be a tycoon. For the rest of us, the sooner we get over ourselves, the better.

You know, no one ever seems to question where the food replicators in Star Trek got the raw material to make the food and dishes.

[Moses Yoder]

I am not sure how long humans have been around, but we have always been drinking peepee water. It's a closed system; where do you think the stuff goes?

[ray hampton]

recycle or not , I hope that NO medicines or drugs are added to the water that are recycle

[ray hampton]

maybe someone will add a chemical to the water that will turn everybody skin brown or black

[Chris Padilla]

I am not sure how long humans have been around, but we have always been drinking peepee water. It's a closed system; where do you think the stuff goes?

All my water comes from a bottle, Moses. ;)

[Mike Henderson]

I heard a very enlightening Radio Lab podcast on this subject.
New York City used to dump its sewage into the Hudson until 1975. Over the next decade+ they started treating and speed-composting the waste underground. The fully processed waste is tested, safe, and clean for composting. They tried to sell the fully composted solids to different states, but nobody close by would take it. Hence perfectly good food-growing compost is now just buried near by. (Colorado was buying it for a while and had record crop yields, but it was too expensive to ship that far).

Eventually, we will have no choice but to drink and eat recycled waste. The guy who figures out how to market this truth will be a tycoon. For the rest of us, the sooner we get over ourselves, the better.
Out here, the treated solid waste is used as fertilizer, but only for crops that are to be fed to animals. While treated solid waste is probably safe as fertilizer for crops for human consumption, the risk is that some pathogens might be in it that would be transferred to the crop, and then to a human. It's safer for animals because most pathogens that would come from humans do not infect animals.

Our waste water is treated as described, through reverse osmosis, but it is then injected into the local aquifer. So the "toilet to tap" aspect of it is kind of hidden from people. But the water is very pure, a lot purer than the other water that is used for our water system.

As someone else said, all water is recycled. And a lot of it over the millions of years has gone through some animal or human.

Mike

[Brian Elfert]

recycle or not , I hope that NO medicines or drugs are added to the water that are recycle

Someone could add contaminants to drinking water no matter if the water is recycled or not.

[Wade Lippman]

All my water comes from a bottle, Moses. ;)

Where do you think the water in your bottle comes from? They create it by burning hydrogen?

[Chris Padilla]

Where do you think the water in your bottle comes from? They create it by burning hydrogen?

The store, Wade!!! The same place I get my steaks from. :D:p;) (You realize I'm being facetious here....)

[Prashun Patel]

Nope, it was used to grow wheat for bread for humans.

[Jim Becker]

Where do you think most, if not all, of the drinking water comes from on the International Space Station? ;)

[glenn bradley]

I am not sure how long humans have been around, but we have always been drinking peepee water. It's a closed system; where do you think the stuff goes?

Amen to that ;-) I shut my older RO system down as the waste ratio was about 7 gallons of waste to make 1 gallon of water at the spigot. Newer systems are quite a bit better but, you have to watch for "spin" on the numbers given by the folks trying to sell the system. If two seemingly identical systems are quite different in price, dig deeper ;-)

[Tom Scott]

Water is the new gold. If anyone thinks they don't consume post-waste water, then they are only fooling themselves. Especially in the south and west where water resources are precious, almost all cities have treatment plants and that same water that flushed your toilet can end up in your glass. Most often they are supplementing water from reservoirs, but why on earth would it be wasted when it can be treated and re-used?
Yes, water is BIG business, and treatment of water is big business. I don't think people are willing to wait the thousands of years for it all to filter through the earth and go through the same process naturally.

[Mike Henderson]

Water is the new gold. If anyone thinks they don't consume post-waste water, then they are only fooling themselves. Especially in the south and west where water resources are precious, almost all cities have treatment plants and that same water that flushed your toilet can end up in your glass. Most often they are supplementing water from reservoirs, but why on earth would it be wasted when it can be treated and re-used?
Yes, water is BIG business, and treatment of water is big business. I don't think people are willing to wait the thousands of years for it all to filter through the earth and go through the same process naturally.
Out here in CA, we have a saying: "Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting."

Mike

[Raymond Fries]

I am reminded of a job I worked on some 30 years ago. I worked building and trades as a construction laborer then. There was an expansion at our water treatment facility. One day I was the lucky guy that got picked to shovel the pit at the bottom of one of their holding tanks. The tank was maybe 75' square with the four floor sides sloping to the center. There was a huge paddle with rubber scrapers that turned and scraped the floor pushing the solids into the pit. I think that was the nastiest construction task I ever had to do. I remember looking at the muddy brown water in those tanks and wondering how they ever got it clear and clean enough to drink.

The water here as always had a funky taste and that is why we bought the reverse osmosis system maybe ten years ago. I love the pure clean water to drink.

Take Care...

[Moses Yoder]

Of course I thought of "Water World" right away.

[Jim Matthews]

You know, no one ever seems to question where the food replicators in Star Trek got the raw material to make the food and dishes.

Never saw toilets or showers on any of the TV variants, neither.
I think it's the outfits - like rebreathers for excretae.

The newest outfits are Yellow, the oldest Red.
Every so often, you got to dispose of a Red suit
either out the airlock or on some hostile rock.

[Dave Sheldrake]

"recycled" 7 times by all accounts

cheers

Dave

[Wayne Lovell]

Notice to everyone in the Dallas / Ft. Worth area FLUSH TWICE, HOUSTON NEEDS THE WATER.

[Dave Sheldrake]

On a planet 2/3rds cover in the stuff, every 4 seconds a child under 5 dies because they didn't get a drink.........gives a bit of perspective to the "need for water"

cheers

Dave

[Jim Matthews]

I thought of "Water World"

Yeah, when Movies were competing to win the Razzie.
They don't make 'em like they used to.

Guess they learnt their lesson.

[Bill Cunningham]

Just a reminder! Soilent Green is People !

[Roger Feeley]

You know, no one ever seems to question where the food replicators in Star Trek got the raw material to make the food and dishes.

Charles, I always figured that the replicators were an offshoot of the transporters. If you can turn matter into energy and back into matter, why can't you store the pattern of food and go directly from energy to matter. The critical premise in Start Trek is that energy is limitless so going from energy to matter shouldn't be a problem.

That said, I've always wondered what a Star Trek toilet would be like. I don't identify as a Trekkie but I have watched all the series and movies. I can think of only one case where a character was in a bathroom (Neelix in Voyager) but I have never seen any other plumbing. So would would the toilet be? Or maybe they just beam it out?

[Shawn Pixley]

Out here in CA, we have a saying: "Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting."

Mike

If you want to know more about water in the west, I reccomend reading a book titled, "Caddilac Desert."

[Leigh Betsch]

Sounds like a good plan to me. Feed them pee water, everyone switches to bottled water, problem solved...;)

[Tom Stenzel]

When you’re walking in the woods breathing that nice clean air, keep in mind that you’re inhaling PLANT POOP (oxygen).

Mmmm- Ahhhh! That’s some good poop!

And Creekers, remember when in the woods to exhale a bit more forcefully, to give the trees a ‘lil extra. We have to think of the children you know.

Not being someone who can say something. For over 30 years I worked at the Detroit Sewerage treatment plant. On an average day we dumped 700 million gallons of treated sewage in the Detroit River for everyone downstream’s drinking pleasure. I retired in 2012.

The reason I bring this up now is the Don’t Drink the Water advisory that Monroe and Toledo has. It’s being blamed on alge toxins (microcystin) but I just wonder how the plant is doing. I notice that the plant didn’t come up in the news as a source of pollution even though it has long been the largest single point polluter on the Great Lakes.

-Tom

Who over the decades because of system foul ups, SNAFUs and various screwups, has been responsible for several billion (yes, that’s billion with a B) gallons of untreated/ partially treated sewage getting dumped in the river.

[Matt Meiser]

The reason I bring this up now is the Don’t Drink the Water advisory that Monroe and Toledo has

That part is NOT correct. Monroe has its own water treatment system and was not affected by the issues Toledo had over the weekend. Some parts of southern Monroe County (parts of LaSalle, Erie, Bedfrod, Luna Pier) are served by Toledo water and were affected--up to a couple miles south of us. There is an interconnect between the two systems but it is not normally open. I remember it being opened around 1990 when Monroe lost water due to the zebra mussel issue but Monroe couldn't supply enough water for Toledo to use it the other way. Doubt they could serve the southern portions of the county even but that's just a guess.

This is why Toledo had an issue. That's the intake crib for Toledo's water system in the background. Most "experts" quoted over the weekend were blaming phosphorus loading from the Maumee River for the problem since the worst of the algal bloom is at the mouth of that river. Monroe's water intake is several miles north. The City of Oregon also did not have an issue--their intake is a few miles east.
294166

Was an interesting weekend. Got a good laugh from a lady at Kroger who overheard me reminding my daughter NOT to wash her hands in the restroom (they had hand sanitizing stations set up.) We usually do our shopping to the south but since we are 90% packed and eating out a lot, we had to head north so we could get something to eat. We're on a well until we move into Monroe late next week so we were unaffected at home. I do think we'll stock up on bottled water after the move just in case it gets worse and starts to affect Monroe.