SACRAMENTO — State authorities are set to vote next week on regulations for turning sewage into drinking water across California.
The State Water Resources Control Board’s “toilet to tap” resolution would create, as a means of protecting public health, uniform recycling criteria for the direct reuse of treated wastewater as potable water, according to the agency.
“It really will be some of the highest water quality available,” Darrin Polhemus, the water board’s deputy director of drinking water, told the San Francisco Chronicle, adding that sewage could be converted to drinking water in days or even hours.
The board must adopt the rules, which have undergone scientific peer review and been approved by an expert panel, before the end of the year, according to the state body. Water systems and agencies will not be required to participate in wastewater reuse and would have to hold a public hearing for any recycling projects before permit approval. About a third of the public does not support the idea of sewage reuse, Kirsten Struve, an assistant officer at Santa Clara Valley Water, told the Chronicle.
Several reuse efforts are underway across the state, including in Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Clara County, according to the Chronicle, which noted the new regulations must be cleared by the state Office of Administrative Law before taking effect.
In July, Pure Water Southern California received $80 million from the state for the recycling program aimed at creating a new water source for 19 million people, according to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
“It will expand the water supply with a climate resilient source and help the entire state respond to hotter, drier conditions,” state water board Chair Joaquin Esquivel said in a news release at the time.
Metropolitan and sanitation districts hoped to start construction on the project in 2025 and begin delivering water in 2032, purifying cleaned wastewater that is currently sent to the ocean to instead produce drinking water across up to 60 miles of new pipelines.
“The way we managed our water resources is no longer sufficient as we encounter longer, hotter periods of drought and increasingly limited water resources,” Metropolitan General Manager Adel Hagekhalil said in the news release.
Right now, treated wastewater in California is mainly used for irrigation and industry, the Chronicle reported, adding that in some areas, it is pumped to aquifers and combined with groundwater before being treated for taps.
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