Last month my white paper, Public Relations and the "Yuck" Factor, talked about how one community responded to a person urinating in a reservoir. The jurisdiction drained the reservoir at a cost of over $30k. I questioned whether this was an over-reaction or a clever ploy to gain support for the water department's budget.
Today I received a link to an article about a town in Texas that is planning to recycle its wastewater. The town is considering using a system similar to that used by NASA in the space program to provide drinking water for astronauts. The article also notes that Los Angeles is considering a $700 million project to use recycled wastewater to recharge underground wells.
Despite a bit of sensationalism in the article, this really isn't something new. Recycled wastewater has been used all over the world in arid regions out of necessity. Both the Texas town of Big Spring and Los Angeles are pursuing wastewater recycling for the same reason: water is becoming scarce because of drought and increasing populations. Wastewater recycling may well be the way of the future for a lot of major cities.
Sort of puts the reaction to 6-8 ounces of urine in 8 million gallons of water in perspective doesn't it?
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