With Pressure from Drought, San Diego Looks to Reclaim Wastewater

Articles — By forcechange on January 23, 2009 9:40 am

With water supplies dwindling in the Western United States, more cities are looking to reclaim wastewater for drinking purposes.  The city of Escondido in San Diego County has recently decided to explore this option.  Similar to the system currently being used by its northern neighbor Orange County, Escondido is looking at a process that would clean the wastewater to irrigation standards, remove the salt via reverse osmosis, and treat the water with ultraviolet light and hydrogen peroxide to kill remaining bacteria.  It would then be released into a wetland or basin, where it would percolate through the soil, before being pumped back out of the ground.

The San Diego Union-Tribune notes that Shivaji Deshmukh, the manager of the Groundwater Replenishment system in Orange County, claims that tests have shown reclaimed wastewater is actually cleaner than drinking water from the Colorado River, which has treated wastewater dumped into it by cities all along its path.

Regardless, opponents still argue that this “toilet to the tap” process is a bad idea.  Unfortunately, given the extreme scarcity of this necessary resource, and its threat of becoming even scarcer, programs like these are likely to become more common in cities throughout the region.

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