News, Florida City to Turn Toilet Water Into Drinking Water (recycle, pump)

[John1960]

PEMBROKE PINES The water in Pembroke Pines toilet bowls may soon show up in the drinking glasses of South Floridians from Miami to Boca Raton.

Within three years, Pembroke Pines plans to be the first South Florida city to inject treated sewage — about 7 million gallons a day — into the Biscayne Aquifer, which supplies most of the drinking water for Broward, Miami-Dade and southeastern Palm Beach County. That's about the amount of water in 11 Olympic swimming pools.

Pembroke Pines plans to pump millions of gallons of treated sewage into water supply - South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com

[plwhit]

The astronauts have drank recycled pee for decades, no biggie.......

But to spend 47 million dollars for this reason?

it means the aquifer would be depleted a little more slowly

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by TexasWaterMan

I have been in the residential water treatment business for over 15 years. ALL water supplied to homes within city limits (as a rule) is "toilet to tap". One would have to assume that if you drink water out of the tap you are at the mercy of what ever the city workers are doing or not doing to the water supply. Monthly testing does not mean that it is "clean" for you or me. I can prove that most all water that is recycled to the general public has many problems that go to the cellular level of our bodies. However, I also find that many people just don't care...they only address these concerns when they get sick and it becomes obvious to them it is water related. Read the latest news on Flouride in our water supply..I've known this information for years...and you would chring at the information I have uncovered over the years about our water supply and the infrastructure problems we have.

Yep. If you live on any coast of the United States you're drinking the sewage of everyone upstream. This is why we Houstonians hate Dallas.

[lifelongMOgal]

In FL, IIRC, they do this via irrigation (sprinklers) of pasture land, orange groves, etc... allowing the water to filter through the sand/soil back down to the aquifer just like rainwater. They are not pumping the treated water directly into the aquifer.

[JohnHAdams]

Water shortage in Florida? MY...now I've heard it all. Much of Florida gets 55" of rain/year. One could swim from the Atlantic to the Gulf if they had enough air and could navigate all of the twists and turns and caverns and what not.

I think it was called "Underwater Florida". Something like that.

People are told that water disappears after use. It doesn't....unless we have Martians shipping used water into outer space. It merely travels from one location to another. Has been for about 4 billion years now.

I'm not promoting wasting water...just saying that we can't 'disappear' it like oil and other resources.

We can pollute it and it can take nature a long time to clean it of course.

Geez.....EVERYTHING is a CRISIS these days. The water shortage is bogus.

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by jimboburnsy

Yep. If you live on any coast of the United States you're drinking the sewage of everyone upstream.

Not necessarily, NYC has to have best water supply in entire world as far as large cities goes. Issue there is what happens to it once it gets to NYC.

[Wilson513]

If they offer me recycled urine anywhere, I'm moving.

[lifelongMOgal]

Originally Posted by JohnHAdams

Water shortage in Florida? MY...now I've heard it all. Much of Florida gets 55" of rain/year. One could swim from the Atlantic to the Gulf if they had enough air and could navigate all of the twists and turns and caverns and what not.

I think it was called "Underwater Florida". Something like that.

People are told that water disappears after use. It doesn't....unless we have Martians shipping used water into outer space. It merely travels from one location to another. Has been for about 4 billion years now.

I'm not promoting wasting water...just saying that we can't 'disappear' it like oil and other resources.

We can pollute it and it can take nature a long time to clean it of course.

Geez.....EVERYTHING is a CRISIS these days. The water shortage is bogus.

Well, no, actually it is not.

Regional Drought Monitor: Southeast (http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/DM_southeast.htm - broken link)

Trend-Compensated Overview of Real-time Water-level Monitoring Sites in South Florida

http://www.dep.state.fl.us/swapp/doc...Assessment.pdf

http://www.articlesbase.com/environm...rd-726936.html

Florida really needs some low grade hurricanes with extended rainfall to keep the aquifers healthy.

[lifelongMOgal]

Originally Posted by wilson1010

If they offer me recycled urine anywhere, I'm moving.

If you are on "city water" or in a water district, are you certain of your areas water treatment programs and that you are not already drinking recycled water?

[Wilson513]

Originally Posted by lifelongMOgal

If you are on "city water" or in a water district, are you certain of your areas water treatment programs and that you are not already drinking recycled water?

Every day, within eye sight of my office, approximately 290 gallons of fresh water pass by for every man woman and child in the US. That's right, all 300,000,000 of them. The Ohio River may have some urine in it, but I don't think that is what we are are talking about here. It also has some cat urine, bat urine and coal oil. But people swim in it and some people even drink it (me not included). And if .0000000000001 of a percentage point is sewerage, then its probably just a little worse than rain water.

What I mean is that if someone puts the treated sewerage directly into the water supply, I'm going to Alaska to drink glacial melt. Yuck!