Title: Advanced Thinking: Potable Reuse Strategies Gain Traction

Richard Dahl is a freelance writer in Boston. He also writes periodically for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Background image: © Shutterstock About This Article open Citation: Dahl R. 2014. Advanced thinking: potable reuse strategies gain traction. Environ Health Perspect 122:A332–A335; http://dx.doi.org/10.1289/ehp.122-A332 News Topics: Drinking Water Quality, Infrastructure, Innovative Technologies, Laws, Regulations, and Policy, Natural Resources, Water Security, Water Treatment Published: 1 December 2014 PDF Version (3.3 MB) Advanced treatment capabilities enable cities to augment drinking water supplies with purified wastewater. This image shows treated water feeding into a microfiltration unit, part of the Orange County Groundwater Replenishment System. © 2014 Jon Zich/CostaMesaPhotography.com In 2011 city officials watched anxiously as the water supply for Wichita Falls, Texas, began to disappear. It was near the beginning of a historically severe drought that afflicts Texas and much of the Southwest to this day. For decades, Wichita Falls had drawn nearly all its drinking water from two reservoir lakes—Lake Arrowhead and Lake Kickapoo—but now water levels in those bodies had dropped from 88% of capacity to 55%.1 The Wichita Falls city leaders enacted the first of what would become five increasingly tough mandatory restrictions on residential water use. But as the lakes’ shorelines continued to recede, they realized the time had come to t...
Source: EHP Research - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Featured News Spheres of Influence December 2014 Drinking Water Quality Infrastructure Innovative Technologies Natural Resources Water Security Water Treatment Source Type: research