In October 2022, San Francisco raised eyebrows when the city budgeted $1.7 million for a single-stall public restroom in the city’s Noe Valley neighborhood. The high price tag, according to city officials, was due to the steep price of construction in San Francisco, as well as remaining supply chain issues.

But the state stepped in shortly after, scrapping the planned bathroom after outrage spread over its high cost to taxpayers. Fifteen months later, the public plaza where the restroom was originally planned still doesn’t have a place to pee—and it doesn’t look like it will get one any time soon.

“Why isn’t there a toilet here? I just don’t get it. Nobody does,” one resident told The New York Times last week. “It’s yet another example of the city that can’t.”

San Francisco has the most expensive construction costs in the world—and it’s hardly surprising. In order to build a public bathroom in Noe Valley, at a location that already had the necessary plumbing to add a restroom, builders would have to pass a dizzying number of regulatory stops. These include seeking approval from the Arts Commission’s Civic Design Review committee, passing review under the California Environmental Quality Act, and getting the go-ahead from the city’s Rec and Park Commission and San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. If that isn’t enough, the project would also be subject to a period of “community feedback.”

Even after gaining approval, the city wouldn’t be free to simply find the cheapest acceptable bathroom—likely a pre-fabricated option—and connect it to city plumbing. According to a 2022 San Francisco Chronicle article, pre-fabricated bathrooms violate the city’s Public Labor Agreement. Adding to costs, the city would also be required to use union labor to construct the bathroom.

While the $1.7 million price tag was rightfully criticized, should the project have been allowed to go forward, the budget might not have been an overestimate. San Francisco’s regulatory burden on new construction—even something as simple as a single-stall bathroom—is just that high. 

Even San Francisco’s own government has conceded that the Noe Valley bathroom fiasco was a sign that the city has too much regulation. “It’s worth changing the laws that are in place around construction projects like the restroom that slow things down,” a spokesperson for Mayor London Breed told the Times. 

But this is far from the first time that local governments have earmarked absurdly large sums of money to pay for public bathrooms. In 2017, New York City spent $2 million on a public park bathroom. And last year, Philadelphia caused controversy when it announced that it would spend $1.8 million on six modular Portland Loo bathrooms over the next five years—a model that cities across the country have spent millions on in recent years.

The post California Stopped San Francisco’s $1.7 Million Rest room. The Metropolis Cannot Construct One thing Cheaper. appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Evidently no longer content to flush public money down just any old toilet, the city of San Francisco is upping its toilet game and is prepared to spend up to $1.7 million to build a single commode in one neighborhood plaza.

City leaders are slated to gather Wednesday afternoon at the Noe Valley Town Square to officially announce a “$1.7 Million state budget win” to build a toilet there, according to an online event schedule. The proposed facility would include just one toilet in a 150-foot space, according to a new report by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight.

The city’s Recreation and Parks Department and the Department of Public Works, which will work together to build the pricey potty, expect it will take three years to complete.

San Francisco tops the list of the world’s most expensive cities to build in, and the proposed million-dollar toilet helps explain why. While construction costs everywhere have risen over the past couple of years due to inflation and supply-chain challenges, the process to install a single toilet in a San Francisco plaza that already has plumbing includes a maze of planning, permitting, reviews, and public outreach, according to the Chronicle report.

First, an architect needs to draw plans for the toilet, which will then be presented to the public for feedback. The Arts Commission’s Civic Design Review committee will be responsible for conducting a “multi-phase review” of the project, like it does for all projects on public lands. According to the Arts Commission’s website, “the committee evaluates each project’s design, scale and massing for accessibility, safety and aesthetic merit.” The review process “ensures that each project’s design is appropriate to its context in the urban environment, and that structures of the highest design quality reflect their civic stature.”

Before the project is put out for bid, it will be subject to review under the California Environmental Quality Act, according to the Chronicle. The public toilet will be built by union workers who will “earn a living wage and benefits,” according to a joint statement from Rec and Parks Department and the Department of Public Works, which added that, “While this isn’t the cheapest way to build, it reflects San Francisco’s values.”

California Assemblyman Matt Haney, who secured the $1.7 million funding from the state to install the toilet, told the Chronicle he requested that sum because that’s what the Rec and Parks Department told him the going rate for a public bathroom was. The city said the $1.7 million estimate “is extremely rough.”

“They told me $1.7 million, and I got $1.7 million,” Haney told the paper. “I didn’t have the option of bringing home less of the bacon when it comes to building a toilet. A half a toilet or a toilet-maybe-someday is not much use to anyone.”

In an email to National Review Wednesday, the Recreation and Parks Department said it will consider various options for constructing the toilet, including installing a pre-fabricated restroom. The department said it budgets for the worst-case scenario, so it estimates high. “In the end, the project may well be delivered for far less [than $1.7 million], with leftover funding put toward further improvements or maintenance,” the email stated.

San Francisco, which is struggling with a troubling homelessness and public-defecation crisis, needs more public toilets. A 2018 report in the Guardian questioned “Why is San Francisco … covered in human feces?” One city non-profit has turned old municipal buses into rolling showers and toilets to help with the problem.

San Francisco also has a history of overspending on seemingly mundane items. Last year, the city spent nearly a half-million dollars to develop new trash can prototypes because city leaders “weren’t happy with the look” of off-the-shelf cans.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include additional details from a Recreation and Parks Department email received early Wednesday evening.

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Near the summit of Agassiz Peak, the second-highest peak in Arizona, in the Arizona Snowbowl ski resort in the Coconino National Forest, an amenity to visitors has a curious designation. The public restroom on the slopes of the mountains has been identified as the highest toilet in Arizona.

The toilets are near the summit of the San Francisco Peaks and within the only area of Arizona that is classified as a tundra ecosystem. Within sight is the highest point in Arizona, Humphrey’s Peak, which sits at 12,637 feet. If weather and atmospheric conditions cooperate you can even see the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, over 80 miles away.

During the ski season, the toilet is accessible to those with a lift ticket by riding the gondola near the summits of the San Francisco Peaks. During many months of the off-season you can still purchase gondola tickets and enjoy a scenic ride and magnificent views, and if need be, visit the highest toilet in Arizona to relieve oneself.

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The most fascinating portion of the Louvre may not be the Venus De Milo or the Mona Lisa (good luck pawing through the cellphone-wielding hordes on the latter) but, rather, its less-traveled and dimly lit basement. Here one finds the foundations of the medieval castle that once stood here. But you’ll find more than that. You’ll find … crap. 

You’ll find the remnants of 12th-century lunches, or other odds and ends that were tossed over the battlements and down into the moat or dropped down the privy. In essence, these are the things that were flushed down the toilet. You can learn a lot about society from the bottom up, it turns out. 

That’s still true. It’s certainly true here in San Francisco. Life, essentially, is a series of trips to the toilet — and this city’s spending habits on toilet paper reveal much about both municipal life and municipal spending habits. You can learn a lot about San Francisco and its budget from the bottom up, too. 

In 2011, your humble narrator put in a public records request with the City Administrator for any and all toilet paper expenditures. I did so again six years later. It’s been six more years, so last month, I did it again.

In 2011, San Francisco spent $833,113 on toilet paper. By 2017, that figure had increased sharply, to $1.19 million — a hefty 43 percent surge in only six years. At this pace, toilet paper spending in 2023 should’ve reached $1.7 million. But it won’t. 

The good people at the City Administrators’ office — who extracted toilet paper spending out of larger contracts at our behest — came up with the figure of $1.03 million for 2022, and $550,599 through the first six months of 2023. That’s a lot less. Even adjusting for inflation, $1.19 million in January 2017 has the buying power of $1.5 million today. And toilet paper is surely more expensive now than in the recent past. So what happened?

Photo illustration by Junyao Yang

Well, 2020 happened. And 2021, and 2022 and, so far, 2023. God help us in 2024. The pandemic continues to exert a transformational influence on this city.

Mayor London Breed has attempted to cajole private-sector workers back to the city’s bereft Downtown offices: “It’s time to take the pajamas off or, if you put on covid pounds, go downtown and buy some new pants,” she said at a 2022 event held at Salesforce Park (without Salesforce — an unsubtle dig).

For the record, Breed did not opt to punctuate that statement with a blast from an air horn. You’re not going to believe this, but her approach didn’t work: Not only are private-sector employees still working from home, it’s more than clear that goodly numbers of public sector workers are still working from home — and flushing at home. This is what the toilet paper data reveals. But it reveals more.

In 2011, around 56 cents of every dollar the city spent on toilet paper went not toward the relief of city workers, but to stock up San Francisco International Airport. By 2022 that ratio grew even more lopsided: 79 cents of every San Francisco toilet paper dollar went to the airport.

It’s not surprising the airport is spending more on toilet paper now than it did 13 years ago: Inflation has been significant and toilet paper, specifically, costs more. It’s also not surprising that most of the toilet paper goes to SFO: San Francisco has tens of thousands of employees, but SFO has tens of millions of passengers. 

But here’s what’s surprising: The airport’s 2022 passenger count is only marginally higher than passenger numbers in 2010. And yet the portion of toilet paper directed to the airport instead of the rest of the city has exploded.  

The toilet paper data is clear: It points toward appreciable numbers of city workers, as the mayor would put it, in their pajamas — and, presumably, buying pants online.

In 2010, about 56 percent of San Francisco’s toilet paper budget went to the airport.

By 2022, that had risen to at least 79 percent, according to City Administrator data.

In 2010, about 56 percent of San Francisco’s toilet paper budget went to the airport.

By 2022, that had risen to at least 79 percent, according to City Administrator data.

Chart by Will Jarrett. Data from the City Administrator.

San Francisco’s budget is big. San Francisco spends a lot on toilet paper. This is neither revelatory nor illuminating. It’s less pulling a rabbit out of a hat than pulling a rabbit out of a rabbit hutch. 

Rather, San Francisco’s toilet paper numbers help to contextualize a budget that is almost inapproachable in its vastness. Toilet paper’s municipal price tag of almost exactly $1 million is also nice and neat; it’s easy to compare it to other costs. 

So, if you take a look at the 94 items accounting for the $42 million the Board of Supervisors redistributed during June’s add-back session in the current fiscal year, you’ll find that all but eight of them are an expenditure at roughly at the level of toilet paper or less — with many being way less. Virtually the only media coverage and public engagement with San Francisco’s budgeting process, and its resultant leviathan budget, is spent covering arguments over these toilet paper-sized costs — while virtually everything else in the $14.6 billion budget goes lightly scrutinized. 

Introducing the Toilet Roll Measure (TRM): Mission Local’s contribution to the time-honored American tradition of measuring things using anything but the metric system.

One toilet roll equals $1,031,093, the amount San Francisco spent on toilet paper in 2022. Let’s see how that stacks up to other expenses haggled over in this year’s budget.

Establishment of the Office of Reparations was one of the most contentious items in this year’s budget process. It has been afforded $2M per year for all the associated staffing and admin costs.

Street cleaning in the Mission was added back into the budget at the cost of $225,000 per year – less than a quarter of the city’s TRM.

The SRO Collaborative and the Code Enforcement Outreach Program were both initially cut from the budget. Both programs helped low-income people with housing, the former by advocating for families in SROs and the latter by pushing landlords to deal with problems.

After outcry and much debate, the programs were reinstated at a cost of $4.8M per year.

Altogether, the 2023-24 addbacks add up to around $42M. This was high compared to typical years and came after several weeks of back and forth between departments and supervisors.

Not all city costs see so much scrutiny. The police budget supplemental approved in March gave the department an extra $25M to fund overtime costs. It was approved by supervisors in a 9-2 vote.

The addback process monopolizes elected leaders’ time and media coverage of the budget, but it pales into insignificance next to even the city’s smaller departments.

In November, funding the Public Library was the most popular proposition on the ballot, securing over 80 percent of votes. The department costs around $200M to run annually – roughly 194 TRM.

And costs that get precious little press during budget season, such as healthcare, often account for a vastly higher sum.

The funding for Zuckerberg San Francisco General is $1.2B, making up a little over a third of the Public Health Department’s total funding. That is enough to supply 1,164 San Franciscos with toilet paper for a year.

We’ve written a lot about the budget, the Board of Supervisors’ Lilliputian role in it — and, commensurately, the mayor’s Brobdingnagian role. It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say the Board’s input is akin to the value of toilet paper in the city’s budget. But only a bit. The discretionary money the supes wrangled over in June was only about 1.7 percent of the discretionary funds controlled by the mayor.

This isn’t to say the mayor is bad and the supes are good, or vice versa. This is simply the nature of the city’s strong-mayor system — and our strong mayor is strongest when it comes to setting a budget. In San Francisco, budgeting is an adversarial process. By design.

Are mayors incentivized to intentionally and strategically defund organizations that they know the supes will spend time and effort working to backfill? Yes. Are departments, mandated to make cuts, incentivized to ax popular programs that they also know the supes will spend time and effort working to backfill? Also yes.

As we’ve previously noted, the add-back process is a spectacle; competing community groups are made to line up and tell piteous tales during public hearings like a deranged municipal version of “Queen for a Day.” The reality TV-like pageant of plugged-in nonprofit workers gathering in the halls and wheedling for money “is used by mayors to show that the board is not serious, and they are,” notes an erstwhile mayoral staffer. “But that’s silly. The overwhelming majority of spending is done in the departments, where special interests have already gotten their piece of it.” 

Yes, people are lining up for handouts during add-backs. But when you reach a certain level of clout, you don’t have to line up for anything. And by the time the budget has reached the board, it’s essentially more than 99 percent finalized. Municipal rancor over toilet paper-level money in a $14.6 billion budget that’s almost entirely set is how we do budgeting here — and cover it in the media.

It doesn’t have to be. The budgeting process is lengthy. And, while it’s not a spectacle, it’s not opaque. Attention must be paid: It makes little sense to neglect coverage or input on the budget until it’s 99 percent complete. Especially in the forthcoming year, which promises to be the worst budget since the Great Recession and promises a municipal document worthy of the Book of Revelation.

“The overwhelming majority of spending is done in the departments, where special interests have already gotten their piece of it.” 

San Francisco does not do “zero-based budgeting,” in which expenses must be justified every term; we are less writing a script each year than fiddling with a vast Google Doc. While that’s understandable with a budget as large as San Francisco’s, it is alarming how little of this city’s budgeting discussion is actually performance-based. Budget items become calcified, and discussions tend to focus much more on personnel, and personnel costs, than on what that personnel is actually expected to accomplish for those costs. 

That’ll be something to think about during forthcoming histrionics over toilet paper-priced line-items after 99 cents of every dollar has already been apportioned. Billions in baked-in bucks will have essentially sailed through. But this is the way we do things.

It doesn’t have to be. You can, indeed, learn a lot about San Francisco, and its budget, from the bottom up. Maybe it’s time to flush our status quo down the toilet, too.

Graphics by Will Jarrett.

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The San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department has a new price for a controversial $1.7 million public restroom at a park in the city’s Noe Valley neighborhood.

A generous donation helped bring the restroom’s price down to $300,000.

The planned restroom was supposed to be built in a corner of Noe Valley Town Square Park, which would be a much-welcomed addition for some people who spend their lunch or bring their kids to the area.

“It would be definitely nice to have a bathroom available, not relying on local businesses,” San Francisco resident Amanda Specht said.

But the original cost was a shock and triggered backlash.

“It is outrageous and I’m not surprised by the outrage,” Specht said. “But, it’s San Francisco.”

The controversy over the seemingly bloated price tag became so intense Gov. Gavin Newsom paused the distribution of state funds that had been earmarked for the public restroom. The much lower price the city will have to shell out for the restroom comes after a pair of companies teamed up to donate a prefabricated restroom to San Francisco and offered to pay the delivery and most of the installation costs.

A San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department spokesperson said they will be reaching out to the governor’s office and ask for a portion of the money it paused for project back to help fund a similar project at Precita Park.

The recreation and parks department plans to spend $300,000 to hire a landscape design firm to draw up the plans for the site, including mechanical, electrical and plumbing work. In addition, the work would include handling permitting, environmental review and other administrative costs.

The hope is to have the new restroom installed by late summer.

The post New Worth for $1.7M San Francisco Rest room – NBC Bay Space appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

A large January sewage spill at San Francisco’s main public library that was caused by someone who flushed “foreign objects” down a fourth-floor toilet led to $550,000 in damages.

The spill happened Jan. 20, when a sewer overflow that started on the fourth floor of the Larkin Street library across from Civic Center Plaza spread to the stories below, affecting all three of the first floors in the building’s northwest corner. 

Library staff said the spill contaminated just about everything in the spaces it spread to, with ceilings, ductwork, painted surfaces, insulation, cubicles and floor coverings all being damaged. The library’s Talking Books and Braille Center, Audio-Visual Room and Genre Room were all impacted by the spill, according to the city. 

Jaime Wong, a San Francisco Public Library spokesperson, could not say for sure exactly what kind of “foreign objects” clogged the toilet in question and led to the spill. 

“It might have been some fabric,” Wong said. “It got pretty mangled.”

Wong said toilet blockages in the library have caused spills before, but this appeared to be the first time that one on the fourth floor had caused such extensive damage.

The overwhelming majority of the bill will be paid by insurers, according to city officials. San Francisco is only on the hook for a $10,000 deductible that will be paid from its Library Preservation Fund. 

Cleanup of the spill began the day it happened and was completed Feb. 9, according to the city. Repair work started several days later and most of it has been completed, though some damaged flooring and cubicles still need to be replaced. The city hired a contractor, Belfor Property Restoration, to handle the cleanup and repairs.

The Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee on Wednesday approved the repairs, which required an emergency declaration from the Public Works director. The full board is likely to sign off on the matter next week.

Reach J.D. Morris: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @thejdmorris

The post ‘Random objects’ flushed down SFPL essential library rest room triggered harm appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Meeting building and plumbing codes, the Swash Thinline T22 reduces toilet paper use—saving money, decreasing environmental waste, and enhancing the public restroom experience

SAN FRANCISCO


,


Aug. 22, 2023


/PRNewswire/ — Brondell, an innovator of health and personal care technologies in

North America

, is proud to release the

Swash Thinline T22 Bidet Toilet Seat with Open Front Less Cover

—the first of its kind. Give any public bathroom a hygienic and luxurious upgrade with a commercial bidet designed to reduce toilet paper usage (and the eco-waste it takes to produce it).

Previously, a commercial bidet toilet seat that met Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC) requirements for public restrooms didn’t exist. Now, thanks to the open front, lidless design, businesses can elevate their bathrooms while meeting the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) standards.

At just 99 millimeters (3.90 inches) in height, this advanced commercial bidet maintains a slim, modern appearance for public restrooms in any space—municipal facilities, office buildings, hotel lobbies, spas, restaurants, and more.

Top features include:

• Reinforced internal construction:

  Sleek yet durable, the seat is built to last and to handle the stress of daily public usage.

• User-friendly, side-arm controls:

  Boost comfort and luxury with a full array of customizable features, including instant and continuous warm water washes, and adjustable water temperature.

• Quick-release seat and self-cleaning nozzle:

  Facility teams will love its hygienic features that make upkeep a breeze.

The Swash Thinline T22 Bidet Toilet Seat with Open Front Less Cover is the newest addition to Brondell’s commercial lineup, which includes

air purifiers

,

water filtration systems

, and

showers with patented spray technology

. This industry-leading commercial bidet provides a sustainable solution for private and publicly-owned businesses and buildings.

Commercial bidet benefits include:

• Prioritize bathroom hygiene

  : Gentle, warm water washes leave users feeling fresh and clean.

• Enhance toileting experience:

  Enhance comfort for staff and customers with luxury features, like a heated seat.

• Reduce toilet paper usage:

  By minimizing the need for toilet paper, organizations can preserve the Earth’s precious resources—like water, trees, and energy—and potentially lower overhead expenses.

The Swash Thinline T22 Bidet Toilet Seat with Open Front Less Cover will be available on Brondell.com early next year, listed for

$1632.00

.  For wholesale pricing and availability contact Brondell’s sales department at

commercial.team@brondell.com

.

About Brondell:

With 20 years in the industry,

Brondell

is known for developing products that provide welcome relief, long-term health benefits, and a more sustainable footprint. The company focuses on customer wellness, harnessing cutting-edge technology to improve health within the home, office, and beyond.

Each product in Brondell’s ecosystem of solutions is crafted to fit seamlessly and sustainably into everyday life, so that the things we do every day—like breathing, drinking, bathing, and flushing—are better for both people and the planet. In addition to creating eco-friendly products, Brondell donates 1% of sales of select bidet attachments to environmental nonprofits with its

1% for the Planet product partnership

.

Media Contact:


Geoff Dunlop


geoff@brondell.com

View original content to download multimedia:

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/brondell-makes-business-more-sustainable-with-the-first-ever-commercial-bidet-toilet-seat-301906019.html

SOURCE Brondell Inc.

The post Brondell makes enterprise extra sustainable with the first-ever business bidet rest room seat appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Meeting building and plumbing codes, the Swash Thinline T22 reduces toilet paper use—saving money, decreasing environmental waste, and enhancing the public restroom experience 

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Brondell, an innovator of health and personal care technologies in North America, is proud to release the Swash Thinline T22 Bidet Toilet Seat with Open Front Less Cover—the first of its kind. Give any public bathroom a hygienic and luxurious upgrade with a commercial bidet designed to reduce toilet paper usage (and the eco-waste it takes to produce it).

Brondell’s Swash Thinline T22 Bidet Seat with Open Front Less Cover is the newest addition to its commercial lineup

Tweet this

Brondell Swash T22 Open Front Less Cover Luxury Bidet

Previously, a commercial bidet toilet seat that met Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC) requirements for public restrooms didn’t exist. Now, thanks to the open front, lidless design, businesses can elevate their bathrooms while meeting the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) standards. 

At just 99 millimeters (3.90 inches) in height, this advanced commercial bidet maintains a slim, modern appearance for public restrooms in any space—municipal facilities, office buildings, hotel lobbies, spas, restaurants, and more.

Top features include:

• Reinforced internal construction: Sleek yet durable, the seat is built to last and to handle the stress of daily public usage.
• User-friendly, side-arm controls: Boost comfort and luxury with a full array of customizable features, including instant and continuous warm water washes, and adjustable water temperature.
• Quick-release seat and self-cleaning nozzle: Facility teams will love its hygienic features that make upkeep a breeze.

The Swash Thinline T22 Bidet Toilet Seat with Open Front Less Cover is the newest addition to Brondell’s commercial lineup, which includes air purifiers, water filtration systems, and showers with patented spray technology. This industry-leading commercial bidet provides a sustainable solution for private and publicly-owned businesses and buildings.

Commercial bidet benefits include:

• Prioritize bathroom hygiene: Gentle, warm water washes leave users feeling fresh and clean.
• Enhance toileting experience: Enhance comfort for staff and customers with luxury features, like a heated seat.
• Reduce toilet paper usage: By minimizing the need for toilet paper, organizations can preserve the Earth’s precious resources—like water, trees, and energy—and potentially lower overhead expenses.

The Swash Thinline T22 Bidet Toilet Seat with Open Front Less Cover will be available on Brondell.com early next year, listed for $1632.00.  For wholesale pricing and availability contact Brondell’s sales department at [email protected].

About Brondell: 

With 20 years in the industry, Brondell is known for developing products that provide welcome relief, long-term health benefits, and a more sustainable footprint. The company focuses on customer wellness, harnessing cutting-edge technology to improve health within the home, office, and beyond.

Each product in Brondell’s ecosystem of solutions is crafted to fit seamlessly and sustainably into everyday life, so that the things we do every day—like breathing, drinking, bathing, and flushing—are better for both people and the planet. In addition to creating eco-friendly products, Brondell donates 1% of sales of select bidet attachments to environmental nonprofits with its 1% for the Planet product partnership.

Media Contact:
Geoff Dunlop
[email protected]

SOURCE Brondell Inc.

The post Brondell makes enterprise extra sustainable with the first-ever business bidet bathroom seat appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Reverse osmosis, a step in the water purification process, eliminates more than 99% of all impurities at the Pure Water Southern California Demonstration Plant in Carson. On the left is the filter, and on the right are samples before and after reverse osmosis. (Lauren Justice for CalMatters)

Californians could drink highly purified sewage water that is piped directly into drinking water supplies for the first time under proposed rules unveiled by state water officials.

The drought-prone state has turned to recycled water for more than 60 years to bolster its scarce supplies, but the current regulations require it to first make a pit stop in a reservoir or an aquifer before it can flow to taps.

The new rules, mandated by state law, would require extensive treatment and monitoring before wastewater can be piped to taps or mingled with raw water upstream of a drinking water treatment plant.

“Toilet-to-tap” this is not.

Between flush and faucet, a slew of steps are designed to remove chemicals and pathogens that remain in sewage after it has already undergone traditional primary, secondary and sometimes tertiary treatment.

It is bubbled with ozone, chewed by bacteria, filtered through activated carbon, pushed at high pressures through reverse osmosis membranes multiple times, cleansed with an oxidizer like hydrogen peroxide and beamed with high-intensity UV light. Valuable minerals, such as calcium, that were filtered out are restored. And then, finally, the wastewater is subjected to the regular treatment that all drinking water currently undergoes.

RELATED: This beer is made from recycled San Francisco shower water

“Quite honestly, it’ll be the cleanest drinking water around,” said Darrin Polhemus, deputy director of the state’s Division of Drinking Water.

The 62 pages of proposed rules, more than a decade in the making, are not triggering much, if any, debate among health or water experts. A panel of engineering and water quality scientists deemed an earlier version of the regulations protective of public health, although they raised concerns that the treatment process would be energy-intensive.

“I would have no hesitation drinking this water my whole life,” said Daniel McCurry, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California.

This water is expected to be more expensive than imported water, but also provide a more renewable and reliable supply for California as climate change continues. Most treated sewage — about 400 million gallons a day in Los Angeles County alone — is released into rivers, streams and the deep ocean.

Luis Canela, a water quality technician, injects chemicals to chlorinate water at the Pure Water Southern California Demonstration Plant in Carson. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters

The draft rules, released on July 21st, still face a gauntlet of public comment, a hearing and peer review by another panel of experts before being finalized. The State Water Resources Control Board is required by law to vote on them by the end of December, though they can extend the deadline if necessary. They would likely go into effect next April and it will take many years to reach people’s taps.

Heather Collins, water treatment manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said the regulations will give the district more certainty about how to design a massive, multi-billion dollar water recycling project with the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts. The district imports water that is provided to 19 million Southern Californians.

The joint effort, called Pure Water Southern California, has already received $80 million from the state. The first phase of the project, which could be completed by 2032, is expected to produce about 115 million gallons of recycled water a day, enough for 385,000 Southern California households.

Most is planned to go towards recharging local water agencies’ groundwater stores, but about 20% could be added to drinking water supplies upstream of Metropolitan’s existing treatment plant for imported water.

“We’re excited,” Collins said. “It helps better inform us on what our project needs to include, so that we can have a climate-resistant supply for our agencies in Southern California.”

The new rules come as endless cycles of drought leave California’s water suppliers scrabbling for new sources of water, like purified sewage. In 2021, Californians used about 732,000 acre feet of recycled water, equivalent to the amount used by roughly 2.6 million households, though much of it goes to non-drinking purposes, like irrigating landscapes, golf courses and crops.

Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom called for increasing recycled water use in California roughly 9% by 2030 and more than doubling it by 2040.

“Water recycling is about finding new water, not just accepting the scarcity mindset — being more resourceful in terms of our approach,” Newsom said last May in front of Metropolitan’s Pure Water Southern California demonstration plant.

Some recycled water is already used to refill underground stores that provide drinking water, a process called indirect potable reuse, employed beginning in the 1960s in Los Angeles and Orange counties. But a water agency must have a clean and convenient place to store the expensive, highly-purified water. “You don’t want to inject this recycled wastewater that you’ve spent all this effort cleaning into a dirty, polluted aquifer just to ruin it again,” McCurry said.

To expand these uses, state lawmakers in 2010 tasked the water board with investigating the possibility of adding recycled water either directly into a public water system or just upstream of a water treatment plant. In 2017, they set a deadline to develop the regulations by the end of 2023.

California won’t be the first; Colorado already has regulations and the nation’s first direct potable reuse plant was built  in Texas in 2013. Florida and Arizona have rules in the works.

California’s statewide rules, however, are expected to be the most stringent, said Andrew Salveson, water reuse chief technologist at Carollo Engineers, an environmental engineering consulting firm that specializes in water treatment.

“They are more conservative than anywhere else,” he said. “And I’m not being critical. In the state of California, because we’re in the early days of (direct potable reuse) implementation, they’re taking measured and conservative steps.”

Removing viruses and chemicals

The water that flushes down toilets, whirls down sinks, runs from industrial facilities and flows off agricultural fields is teeming with viruses, parasites and other pathogens that can make people sick. Chemicals also contaminate this sewage, everything from industrial perfluorinated “forever chemicals” to drugs excreted in urine. Bypassing groundwater stores or reservoirs to funnel purified sewage directly into pipes means that there’s less room for error.

The new regulations would ramp up restrictions on pathogens, calling for scrubbing away more than  99.9999% of diarrhea-causing viruses and certain parasites. Also a series of treatments are designed to break down chemical contaminants like anti-seizure drugs, pain relievers, antidepressants and other pharmaceuticals. Medications can bypass traditional sewage treatment so they are found in low concentrations in recycled sewage and groundwater.

Water makes its way to the first step of the water purification process, membrane bioreactors, at the demonstration plant in Carson. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters

The added technologies are good at washing away pharmaceuticals, McCurry said, so having them “back-to-back introduces a ton of redundancy,” he said. “Any pharmaceutical you could think of, if you tried to measure it in the product water of one of these plants, is going to be below the detection limit.”

The new rules call for extensive monitoring to ensure the treatment is working. Some harmful chemicals, such as lead and nitrates, which are dangerous to babies and young children, will be tested for weekly; others, monthly. And water providers must also monitor the sewage itself before it even reaches treatment for any chemical spikes that could indicate illegal dumping or spills.

“We think we’ve got the chemical classes covered in the treatment processes, so that we’re removing materials that we don’t even know are there,” the water board’s Polhemus said.

Jennifer West, managing director of WateReuse California, a trade association for water recycling, said she was happy to finally see California’s regulations, though she hopes the state will build in more flexibility for water providers to alter the suite of treatments as technologies change.

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Richard Gersberg, San Diego State University professor emeritus of environmental health, said he supports using highly treated waste for drinking water. But he suggests that the state fund long-term studies comparing health effects in people who drink it to those whose drinking water comes from another source, such as rivers, “which might end up being worse. Probably is,” he said.

Given the vast and changing cocktail of chemicals constantly in use, “we don’t know what we don’t know,” Gersberg said. “If this becomes huge in California, and it will, I believe … we should at least spend a little money.”

Who will be first?

All this treatment and monitoring is likely to be pricey, which is why Polhemus expects to see it largely limited to large urban areas that produce a lot of wastewater, such as Los Angeles County. The Metropolitan Water District’s $3.4 billion estimate for building the project dates back to 2018, and has likely increased since then, according to spokesperson Rebecca Kimitch.

For small and medium communities, Polhemus said, “it doesn’t pencil out in a small scale type of arrangement.”

The Orange County Water District, which has long been a leader in purifying recycled water, has concluded that piping it directly to customers doesn’t pencil out for them, either, because they’ve already invested so heavily in refilling their carefully tended aquifer.

It would “require adding more treatment processes and increasing operating expenses,” board president Cathy Green said in a statement. “Local water agencies are currently well-equipped to continue to supply drinking water to customers in our service area at a low cost using the Orange County Groundwater Basin.”

For other regions like Silicon Valley, though, the costs may be worth it as climate change continues to shrink state supplies.

“At this point, it’s more expensive than water we might import during a drought. But who knows what will happen in the future,” said Kirsten Struve, assistant officer in the water supply division at the Santa Clara Valley Water District, which serves approximately 2 million people.

“That’s why we need to get prepared.”

The Pure Water Southern California Demonstration Plant showcases technology that may provide drinking water to Southern Californians by 2032. Photo by Lauren Justice for CalMatters

The Santa Clara water agency, known as Valley Water, is planning a $1.2 billion project in Palo Alto to produce about 10 million gallons a day of water for groundwater recharge, but Struve said she hopes the plant also will be used for direct potable reuse in the future.

The timing of the regulations has butted up against the realities of planning for Monterey One Water on the Monterey Peninsula as well. The utility has been injecting purified wastewater into the seaside aquifer for three years, producing about a third of the local supply, said General Manager Paul Sciuto. It is working on expanding the project by 2025, Sciuto said.

“I get that question of, ‘This water is so pure, why do you put it in the ground? Why can’t you just serve it?’ ” he said. “And I always fall back on, well, there’s no regulations that allow us to do that at this point.”

Now that the state is closer to finalizing them, he said, “there’s a point on the horizon to shoot for.”

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