That is avocado toast I would pay for. Damn that looks good

The bigger point is look where source water comes from in LA. Look at all the water they steal from everywhere else. Don’t claim you NEED water if 10-15% of it gets thrown away.

If you went to a gas pump to fill your 20 gallon tank, paid for 25, but still only got 20 would you say there’s a problem? Why it’s acceptable in this industry BeCaUsE iTs ExPeNsIvE is beyond me.

Failing to maintain a distribution system because you don’t want to pay to fix it is just neglect. Regardless of whether poor management practices have set the precedent it’s ok to be negligent they still need to be maintained.

Rate payers will always complain whether valid or not. Years of poor managing and failing to raise rates creates its own set of problems. Incompetent water managers acting like rates can stay the same forever is half the problem.

Yea, because your last comment wasn’t condescending at all…

Your literally being a know it all that has to get the last word in or you wouldn’t have commented that you’re done.

Your comment toward “improving your understanding” proves that you’re just being a know it all without actually providing anything of substance.

If you have something of substance then you would have posted it…

Man of all trades, master of none.

Since you’re in need of knowledge that you clearly don’t have I’d like to direct you toward these few specific courses.

Geology 101, hydrology 101, and limnology 301.

I don’t care how long you've been around.

If you think ANY amount of pathogens are acceptable in drinking water you have the science understanding of a 5 year old.

If you want to live in theory land water entering a wastewater treatment plant is 99% pure.

Drinking water regulations are different than wastewater for a reason…

Well moron, there’s a thing called grammar. Feel free to use it.

Go look at colliform samples from the average wwtp.

Wwtp effluent is NOT treated to drinking water standards. Every heard of crypto (not the currency)? Enlighten me on how a wwtp without a tertiary process treats their effluent for that to need drinking water standards?

So since you seem to think raw freshwater is so dirty go take some colliform and ecoli samples. Let me know how clean you think wastewater effluent is after that.

Nah that’s too smart for CA.

They’ll continue to take water from farms to send to a place with 10 million people to feed that has no farms. Then they’ll continue to allow pg&e (the big electric company out there) to start wildfires and burn down cities amidst water shortages all while not installing one of the safest and most reliable forms of power (nuclear).

No, but seeing as the article was written in California I chose a California city as an example.

And what’s the life of a wastewater plant? It’s not forever…

Failing to replace distribution systems pipes is failing to properly maintain a system. When customers complain about main breaks they have a point. When they complain about their bill being skyrocketing because they have to pay for upgrades because of managers that neglect their systems they have a point.

I don’t get why the industry is so ok with wasting such large volumes of water but “it’s hard” is the excuse I guess.

If you went to the gas station to fill up your cars 20 gallon gas tank and paid 25 but received 20 would you think it’s ok?

While that’s a good point are you really that naïve that you think it’s going to be a widespread standard of operation at every water system?

If you’ve truly been to 100 plants in a meaningful capacity I can’t believe you have the ignorance to say it’s how much you want to spend. Especially in places that do not have a high water reuse need.

Oh yea? Since you’re so smart you have something constructive to add to the discussion right?

Please enlighten us with your wisdom…

I wanted to use 7% to be conservative. It’s definitely much higher.

Imo distribution systems are one of the most neglected parts of the water utility system.

Why everyone thinks they’ll last forever is beyond me.

So the “it’s cheaper” excuse only works as a short term solution.

Look at all the municipalities with constant main breaks because they think “it was made better” back in the day.

I’m not saying replace the entire system overnight but it needs to be replaced as it ages, which include metering equipment that under report, meaning you’ll underbill someone as they age as well.

Still not saying there aren’t places that do it, just that it’s unnecessary given the alternatives that have to be addressed anyway.

It kind of avoids the fact that many plants don’t have the ability to just turn up chemical dosing and call it good.

From one of my other comments:

“This is for places like LA (who steals water from everywhere else) and Las Vegas. Look at LA’s water loss. In my 5 minute search it looks like they use 10,999 MILLION gallons of water a month. Their water loss is 7%. That means the lose 770 MILLION gallons of clean treated water a month. 770 MILLION gallons of clean potable water is wasted. We’re going to clean and reuse wastewater but we can’t even keep from losing clean water? I don’t think so. When LA stops stealing water from everywhere and they start doing this I’ll believe it.”

So put it into perspective.

How does a wwtp work? It does exactly what occurs naturally in nature, only faster. Wastewater plant effluent continues to break down after leaving the plant. It also gets diluted when entering receiving waters.

Part of a wwtp’s npdes permit is supposed to consider other downstream users.

Edit: would you rather drink just wwtp effluent or 99.9999% fresh water diluted with 0.00001% treated wastewater.

There’s only a handful of areas where it’s a major problem (cough cough LA).

Focusing on water loss and reducing that would save quite a bit of water, but for whatever reason everyone is fine with throwing away treated potable water but is gung ho for drinking wastewater.

In my 5 minutes google search LA uses 10,999 MILLION gallons a month and has 7% water loss. I know it’ll never be 0, but that 770 MILLION gallons a month isn’t negligible.

So for me that’s another reason to avoid it.

Im not really sure what are you getting at. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

Why make potable water from recycled water from wastewater when you can more than make up for slight demand increases with addressing water loss?

I literally told you why. Obviously you’re not an actual water plant worker or you wouldn’t be asking something so stupid right after I told you. If you were you wouldn’t have asked to begin with.

You literally are arguing with yourself right now.

Not the same as literal concentrated human shitwater. Go take a look at some raw wastewater and some raw reservoir/ well water.

I also left out wells. Reservoirs and wells.

Do you know how wwtp’s work? It’s not as simple as turning up polymer dosing. Most processes and plants could probably handle it, but not without major upgrades.

The average wwtp has a hard enough time managing effluent quality during “high volume rain events” let alone the hundred year flood that seems to happen every 2 years now…

Add in old, antiquated, crumbling systems, poor planning and upgrading of wwtp’s and it’s not something that’s realistically going to be widespread.

This is for places like LA (who steals water from everywhere else) and Las Vegas. Look at LA’s water loss. In my 5 minute search it looks like they use 10,999 MILLION gallons of water a month. Their water loss is 7%. That means the lose 770 MILLION gallons of clean treated water a month. 770 MILLION gallons of clean potable water is wasted. We’re going to clean and reuse wastewater but we can’t even keep from losing clean water? I don’t think so. When LA stops stealing water from everywhere and they start doing this I’ll believe it.

I’ve worked at several plants and used most major system types.

Relative to DISTRIBUTION systems. There is a huge need for system upgrades to combat water loss. Having worked all over the US I can say that, imo, we should be focused on upgrading leaking/ crumbling distribution systems first.

Recycled water for drinking is a hard sell. I’ll believe it when I see it, when it’s being used in any significant amount.

Not nearly to the degree you’re making it out to be. It’s not direct recycled water. Its water that’s generally diluted in natural freshwater by at least an order of magnitude or more.

Also, most municipalities get their water from reservoirs that receive no wastewater treatment plant effluent.

Tap water is generally safe. Yes, mains break, places occasionally (very infrequently) f up, but overall it is safe.

The source water for drinking water are reservoirs, wells, etc.

Wastewater enters the sanitary sewer system from toilet water, shower water, sinks, etc and goes to a wastewater treatment plant for treatment then to the environment. Some places use wastewater plant treated water to make recycled water. This is generally a cleaner and more treated version of that same water and used for for grass, golf courses, certain agricultural resources, etc… it’s not used for drinking water unless your an astronaut drinking your own recycled urine in space.

Turbidity is the cloudiness or opaqueness of water. Essentially how clear it is, an indicator of how much stuff is in water.

Effluent is water leaving somewhere, the context in which I used it is leaving the plant.

Chlorine gas is cheap and effective as a disinfectant, but is one of the most hazardous substances to work with. I’m a little rusty from being out of the industry since I was forced out of my job, but the osha limit is 1ppm over a 15 minute period and the idlh (immediately dangerous to life and health) threshold is 10ppm. It expands roughly 430 times it’s volume when moving from liquid to gas, a small leak can quickly fill a room and incapacitate someone. This is relative to

Most people that don’t control the budget for things like that prefer some type or variation of sodium hypochlorite (bleach, much safer) because it’s much safer to work with.