With its golden hue and light fruity flavor, the beer being sipped by Aaron Tartakovsky looks and tastes just like many others.

But it contains an unusual ingredient: recycled wastewater from a San Francisco skyscraper.

The beverage was brewed to raise public awareness of the “untapped” potential of water sources that might seem unsavory at first glance, at a time when the American West is struggling with chronic drought exacerbated by global warming, explains Tartakovsky.

“Beer has brought people together basically since the dawn of human civilization,” the boss of recycling company Epic Cleantec told AFP.

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Manufacturing the drink is an “incredible medium” to show the general public “in this age of climate change… recycled water is a really great way to make sure that our communities are secure for generations to come.”

The beer uses water derived from the showers, sinks and washing machines of a San Francisco apartment building containing 550 homes.

Epic Cleantec treats the building’s wastewater in the basement, returning much of it to the 40 floors above to be reused in flushing toilets or the irrigation system.

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California law prohibits redirecting the treated water to taps for drinking.

But once filtered, the water is transformed from a murky, thick gray to a crystal-clear liquid which will “meet or exceed federal drinking quality standards,” says Tartakovsky.

To prove it, he has teamed up with a brewery to create Epic OneWater Brew, a drink inspired by German Kolsch beers.

Epic Cleantec purifies the water in three stages.

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Firstly, bacteria target contaminants in the liquid, similar to how microbes in the human stomach work on the food and drink we consume.

Then the water is filtered through membranes measuring just one-thousandth of the diameter of a human hair.

It is finally disinfected with ultraviolet light, and chlorine.

The results surprised Chris Garrett, boss of the Devil’s Canyon brewery, which has produced 7,200 cans of beer using water from the building.

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In fact, he says, the treated wastewater probably provides “a cleaner slate” than the municipal water he usually uses for brewing beer — and there is no discernible change in taste.

“There literally is no difference, not discernible by anyone, including people that I know that are beer snobs,” said Garrett, who has run blind tastings.

Still, California law currently prevents the two companies from marketing or selling the beer commercially.

They hope that can be changed, and have been distributing cans free of charge during major events such as the recent Climate Week in New York.

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“I think what our beer project has shown people is that the public is a lot more ready for recycled water than we give them credit for,” says Tartakovsky, who served the beer at his own wedding.

In parts of the United States, such as Scottsdale in Arizona, treated wastewater has long been recycled for watering golf courses and crops.

In Orange County, California, treated water is pumped into the ground, where it enters underground aquifers before eventually being returned to the taps.

But due to chronic drought, the region’s water sources are drying up — including the vital Colorado River, relied upon by millions of Americans.

Authorities are exploring ways to recycle wastewater for direct reuse, without having to first return it to the natural environment.

Following Colorado last year, California plans to adopt new measures to pursue this technology before the end of 2023.

Known as “direct potable reuse” (DPR), the practice has been utilized for decades in Windhoek, a city in the southwestern African desert of Namibia.

But opponents have cropped up in the United States, dubbing the process “toilet-to-tap” in a bid to evoke disgust, while glossing over the recycling technology used.

Nonetheless, a recent Stanford University study found that recycled water may be cleaner than much of the water we drink daily, thanks to the extra efforts taken to purify it.

It also offers other advantages to expensive alternatives, such as treating seawater.

“The public often thinks about seawater desalination is a preferable alternative,” said Bill Mitch, co-author of the research.

“But beyond needing to be next to the coasts… it’s also much more energy intensive to clean up seawater than municipal wastewater, and about twice as costly.”

Mitch, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, hopes that initiatives like Epic Cleantec’s can help to change attitudes.

In recent years, other beers using wastewater have been brewed in Arizona and Idaho.

“Any of those actions certainly helps break down the public impression of ‘toilet-to-tap'” he said.

The post Wastewater Beer Goals To Assist Quench US Drought appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

UPDATED: To correct name and title. (Wed,. April 5, 10:30 a.m. MT)

By Naoki Nitta for Grist.
Broadcast version by Suzanne Potter for California News Service reporting for the Grist-Public News Service Collaboration

Standing under a shady tree drooping with pomegranates late last year, Brad Simmons, a retired metal fabricator who has lived in Healdsburg, California, for 57 years, showed off his backyard orchard. Along with the apple, cherry, and peach trees, he’s packed one pear tree, two lemon trees, and a century-old olive tree into his bungalow’s compact garden.

Of course, the small grove requires plenty of water – an increasingly scarce resource in a state that continues grappling with a historic drought despite recent torrential rains. Yet Simmons, like many of his fellow 12,000 residents, has managed to keep much of this wine country community north of San Francisco looking verdant while slashing the city’s water use in half since 2020.

Healdsburg benefits from an invaluable resource that keeps gardens, trees, and vineyards irrigated: free, non-potable water produced by its wastewater-reclamation facility. The plant recycles 350 million gallons of effluent drained and flushed in the city every year, according to city officials, or slightly more than half its annual water consumption. The reused H₂O is used in irrigation, construction, and other applications that require lower levels of treatment than drinking water. This eases pressure on regional reservoirs and wells while enlisting a wide pool of users in promoting an ethos of conservation, all the while helping manage the amount of treated wastewater discharged into the Russian River.

“I worry about water all the time,” Simmons said as he dragged a hose across his parched grass to an enormous box filled with 275 gallons of reclaimed water. The washer-and-dryer-size containers have become a standard lawn fixture around town. “So this is a real lifeline.”

California’s wastewater projects

Currently, California treats and reuses approximately 728,000 acre-feet, or approximately 18 percent, of the yearly wastewater it produces. But the state has higher ambitions for increasing water security: New goals call for a near threefold increase by 2030 to 2 million acre-feet annually.

Backed by initiatives such as the California Water Board’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund and federal support, including a $750 million grant program, several large projects are in the pipeline. Orange County, for one, is upping capacity on its potable water-purification plant – already the world’s largest – to recycle 130 million gallons of effluent daily. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is eyeing a new $3.4 billion recycling facility that would secure a renewable source of drinking water for 19 million customers in the Los Angeles area.

For smaller communities or those with limited resources, however, a more modest approach can be just as effective, says Anne Thebo, senior researcher at the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit water conservation think tank in Oakland, California.

“The local context can really give communities flexibility in developing their water-reuse plans,” she notes. Agricultural communities hold an advantage here, she says, because many forms of irrigation don’t require recycled water that’s clean enough to drink. But all communities have some flexibility in their ability to use treated effluent, because water used to irrigate timber or lawns can be lower in quality than that used for pasture grass like alfalfa or crops that can be eaten raw, such as strawberries and lettuce. Developing a water-recycling plan that suits the needs of the community can diversify a region’s water portfolio and offset overall demand.

Healdburg’s approach

Reuse wasn’t Healdsburg’s main priority when it upgraded the wastewater plant in 2008. The city needed to comply with environmental discharge regulations into the Russian River, which included meeting a higher threshold of nutrient and pathogen removal. The $29.3 million enhancement added pathogen-filtering membranes and UV light to a process that already included filtration and a microbial scrubbing. The additional measure purifies wastewater to near-drinking quality, making it clean enough to release into the 1,485-square-mile watershed.

Still, even at that quality, regional water authorities limit discharge to October through mid-May, when rain typically swells river volumes and reduces the risk of negative impacts. For the remaining months, “we have to figure out what to do with it,” says Healdsburg’s water and wastewater engineer Patrick Fuss. This became the core challenge, and eventual success, of Healdsburg’s program – ensuring that there’s enough demand for that supply.

Although state regulations allow the agricultural use of triple-treated water, they also require permits that outline specific uses, largely to ensure the safety of groundwater and the public. Healdsburg’s original permit included wine-grape irrigation along with residential, landscaping, and industrial use. But finding sufficient takers for the treated water was, for years, a challenge, Fuss says. While the recycled water is free, it’s non-potable and requires separate plumbing and tubing, making for a potentially expensive outlay. Others had unfounded concerns about nitrate, mineral, and chemical residues in the supply tainting their prized grapes.

As a result, treated wastewater continued to cascade into the river until three years ago, when municipal actions driven by the escalating drought pushed the city into full compliance with the discharge rules. The multifaceted approach tightens the amount of wastewater coming into the system through water-conservation measures, while increasing demand for recycled water.

Fuss laid some of the groundwork for that by enlisting vintners through a door-to-door campaign, and engaging potential participants in planning a pipeline extension for easier delivery to them. Meanwhile, the city required the use of reclaimed water in all construction projects, making it available at two fill stations. Finally, as state and regional water restrictions tightened last year, Healdsburg started free residential deliveries of up to 500 gallons per subscriber every week.

Accommodating a diverse range of users is crucial, says Fuss, to balancing supply and demand. “We know we can achieve compliance during a drought, when the influent – the amount of wastewater we need to treat – is reduced because people are conserving, while the demand on the other end is greater,” he says. A wet or normal year would flip the equation, which, without sufficient spigots, would quickly overflow the system.

Managing wastewater discharge quality is actually a major motivator of water-recycling projects in California, says Thebo. And as a rule, developing multiple benefits seems to be the common driver to success. “They’re at the core of the partnerships that form between cities, growers, environmental groups, and the slew of other stakeholders. And they’re also what gets the community and local politicians engaged.”

In Healdsburg, there seems to be no shortage of community engagement. Popularity, in fact, killed the residential delivery program, which at its peak served more than a quarter of city households. “It was [financially] untenable as a long-term strategy,” says water and wastewater superintendent Rob Scates, “but it definitely helped get the word out.” The water is still given away at filling stations, and several hauling companies deliver for a small fee (Simmons reports paying $40 for each biweekly delivery).

The city, however, isn’t taking chances. As extra insurance, it recently broadened permissible uses to include pastures, commercial orchards, and nondairy livestock. And plans are in the works to extend the pipe network – painted purple to denote the non-potable supply – directly into town for municipal irrigation, thanks to a $7 million state grant. “Word’s gotten out that the water quality is very good, and it’s a pretty reliable system,” says Scates. “Now [users] are really hooked on it. They keep us in compliance.”

As an early adopter, Dennis De La Montanya, owner of De La Montanya Vineyards, has no apprehension. He’s been irrigating the grapes that produce his award-winning pinot noir and chardonnay off the purple pipes for years. “It’s been a real boon in terms of water availability. And we don’t put a strain on groundwater resources or the public water system,” he says. “It’s a win-win.”

Tangible outcomes like this make the real value of recycled water apparent, says Thebo. “So many of the challenges of water scarcity can feel intractable. But when people can see solutions that impact their daily life, I think it becomes a point of pride for the community.”

Naoki Nitta wrote this article for Grist.

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Kentucky cities and towns could soon start ramping up water monitoring for PFAS chemicals in response to the latest nationwide limits proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

In 2019, Kentucky tested 81 drinking-water systems statewide and found at least one out of eight different PFAS chemicals in more than half.

Betsy Sutherland – the former director of the EPA Office of Science and Technology and current member of the Environmental Protection Network – explained that the EPA now wants to set strict limits on six types of PFAS in water.

“That’s all going to change if EPA finalizes drinking water standards for these chemicals that are similar to what they just proposed,” said Sutherland. “And that’s because they’re all much lower than what Kentucky thought was a problem back in 2019.”

Found in non-stick cookware, fast-food packaging, dental floss, fire-fighting foam and other products, mounting evidence shows PFAS chemicals can accumulate in the body over time and have been linked to cancer and other health problems.

The EPA plans to hold a public hearing on the standards May 4. Members of the public can register to attend and provide comments.

More information is on the agency’s website.

Sutherland said that while the EPA works to finalize the rules, there’s already money available – a total of $5 billion in federal money through the bipartisan Infrastructure Law – for the Commonwealth and other states to start addressing contamination.

She added that beginning in 2025, the agency is also requiring every public water supply system in the country serving 3,300 or more residents to regularly monitor for PFAS compounds.

“So by the end of 2025,” said Sutherland, “we’re going to have much more detailed information on all the drinking-water systems in the country, as to whether they’re contaminated with these chemicals at a level of health concern.”

The Association of State Drinking Water Administrators says while the new standards are a step in the right direction, federal funding won’t be enough to cover construction projects – as well as ongoing increased operation and maintenance costs.

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By Zachary Shepherd and Kelsey Paulus for Kent State News Lab.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan reporting for the Kent State-Ohio News Connection Collaboration.

In summer 2022, Garrett, Jenny and their young daughter Katie Betts had no potable water in their home in Vinton County, Ohio. The Betts family’s house was on the community water line, but they lived about 250 feet up a hill, which is too far for the system’s pumps to successfully push the water.

So several times a week, they made a two-hour-long trip to a local water pump to fill the tank in their trunk, which they used to fill a larger, underground storage tank. They’ve hauled water for more than a decade.

They’re far from the only Ohioans struggling to get clean, potable drinking water, says Terri Fetherolf, who runs the department of development in Vinton County. “Some people have to ration water, have to go elsewhere to get water,” Fetherolf said. “They haul it in tanks in the back of their pickup trucks and use [it] out of a 300-gallon tank. Depending on the size of their family, it may last them a few days or a week, and then they have to go haul it again.”

Fetherolf said approximately 1,700 of about 5,000 households in Vinton County depend on wells or water from elsewhere for basic household tasks.

Getting water to Appalachian communities is challenging and expensive, said Joe Pheil, the executive director at the Ohio Rural Water Association. Residents are spread out in small communities among the hills and it’s difficult to pump water up and down. The reason these people and communities are left without reliable drinking water? The cost.

“I’ve been to pretty large systems over on the western side of Ohio, where everything’s really flat … The whole system has one pressure [zone],” Pheil said. “I’ve been to other systems down in the Appalachian area that have 19 different pressure zones in order to pump through the hilly terrain.”

Water providers “would love for everybody to have access to water,” Pheil said, but the logistical challenges would probably lead to high water bills that aren’t affordable for the average household. The median household income in Vinton County was about $45,000 in 2020, compared to about $58,000 statewide.

“They’re having a hard time maintaining the infrastructure in those communities because the costs are going up,” Pheil said. “The residents in those communities can’t afford to pay more money.” There’s one other option – where the federal and state governments step in with funding for water infrastructure, he said.

Since 1987, the Ohio EPA has offered low or zero-interest loans to community water systems to help fund the development of drinking water infrastructure. The state spent $250 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds on wastewater and drinking water infrastructure projects.

But broadly speaking, Pheil said it can be hard to drum up support for grants like this since it can seem like a lot of money for infrastructure that helps relatively few people.

In the meantime, people haul water. The Betts family used a water tank, held down on their flatbed trailer with parallel winch straps. Their storage tank, located on a short but steep gravel drive behind their house, has seen its fair share of problems. They were once left without water during winter for a month.

“It was the middle of winter and I ran out,” Garrett said in 2022. “While I was trying to reprime the pump, my line ended up freezing right at the tank.” After that winter, Garrett buried the tank underground and hasn’t had any issues since, except a few times when the water tank emptied. In those situations, he has to reprime the pump, which takes a few hours.

By summer 2022, hauling water had become a normal part of everyday life, so much so they find themselves not having to keep track of the amount in the tank. Garrett said he typically hauls two to three loads of water every Saturday, which lasts the family a week.

“It’s so close, yet so far” to the community water system down the hill in MacArthur, Garrett said. “They talked about [needing] a pump station or a water tower, and we’ve already offered to donate property to help with that.”

In August, Ohio announced a $799,000 grant to connect 52 households in Garrett Ridge, a region of Vinton County near MacArthur, to drinking water. The project aims to extend Jackson County Water Company’s service lines into Garrett Ridge.

Keith Solomon, deputy manager of Jackson County Water Company, said this grant money is reserved for the engineering and designing of the project, and any remaining funds afterward will be reserved for the actual construction of the project if it moves forward.

“When the engineering and design work is completed we will be able to present a complete project to the funding agencies,” Solomon said via email. “This is a step in the right direction.” The Bettses are holding off on making any permanent, expensive changes to their water system in the hopes these grants will soon lead to potable water in their homes.

Garrett said he heard about efforts to fix local water infrastructure over the years – but he’s “not going to believe it until it’s running through my faucet.”

Zachary Shepherd and Kelsey Paulus wrote this article for Kent State News Lab. This collaboration is produced in association with Media in the Public Interest and funded in part by the George Gund Foundation.

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The annual cleaning of acequias in northern New Mexico gets underway in earnest next week, just as a filmmaker debuts a documentary about their past, present and future.

Arcie Chapa, manager, Multi-Media Services, University of New Mexico Center for Regional Studies and a filmmaker, has created the hour-long documentary: “Acequias: The Legacy Lives On.” She said the hand-built irrigation ditches have enriched the Land of Enchantment since 16th-century Spanish settlers arrived, with many established by the Pueblo Tribes long before. While some stretches are drying up, prompting fears of their extinction, Chapa believes unified communities can help protect the waterways for future generations.

“My dream is that this film somehow brings communities together – because climate change, if we don’t start now, climate change is going to force us to become more mutualistic,” she said.

The Taos Valley Acequia Association has multiple events starting this Friday in which farmers and volunteers will conduct spring cleaning prior to water being released. Two free screenings of the documentary will be held at Santa Fe’s Jean Cocteau theater today and tomorrow (3/21 and 3/22) with additional screenings in Albuquerque next month.

Chapa believes it has been standing-room only for early showings of the documentary because people are hungry to learn more about the acequias and their self-governed history.

“If you are part of an acequia, you have to be a part of that community whether you like each other or not. When it’s cleaning day, you go out and clean it. You go out and take care of your section of the acequia that runs through your property,” she said.

Most of New Mexico’s acequias are concentrated in the upper valleys around smaller rivers and watersheds but some stem from larger rivers, not only providing water for agriculture but also miles of adjacent recreational trails. Chapa hopes the film serves as an inspiration to people to keep them flowing.

“If there’s water in the San Luis Mountains at the headwaters of the Rio Grande, then there will be water in the acequias, so we need to protect this infrastructure. It’s like one of the people said, ‘It’s the most important infrastructure that we have in New Mexico,’ ” she said.

Disclosure: Amigos Bravos contributes to our fund for reporting on Environment, Public Lands/Wilderness, Water. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.

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The post Regardless of Deluge Recycled Wastewater Bolsters CA Water Safety / Public Information Service appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

This story is part of the Cities + Solutions series, which chronicles surprising and inspiring climate initiatives in communities across the US through stories of cities leading the way. For more solution stories like this, subscribe to Grist’s Climate Solutions newsletter, Looking Forward.

Brad Simmons, a retired metal worker who has lived in Healdsburg, California, for 57 years, stood under a shady tree with drooping pomegranates late last year and showed off his backyard orchard. In addition to the apple, cherry and peach trees, he has packed a pear tree, two lemon trees and a centuries-old olive tree into the compact garden of his bungalow.

Of course, the small grove requires plenty of water — an increasingly scarce resource in a state that continues to struggle with a historic drought despite recent torrential rains. Still, like many of its 12,000 residents, Simmons has managed to keep much of this wine-growing community north of San Francisco looking green while halving the city’s water use since 2020.

Healdsburg benefits from an invaluable resource that irrigates gardens, trees, and vineyards: free, non-potable water produced by its wastewater treatment plant. According to city officials, the plant recycles 350 million gallons of wastewater that the city dumps and flushes each year, or just over half of its annual water use. The recycled H₂O is used in irrigation, construction and other applications that require less treatment than drinking water. This relieves pressure on regional reservoirs and wells, while attracting a broad pool of users to promote a conservation ethos, while still being able to handle the volume of treated wastewater discharged into the Russian River.

“I worry about water all the time,” Simmons said as he dragged a hose down his parched weed to a giant box filled with 275 gallons of treated water. The washer-dryer-sized containers have become a standard lawn facility in the city. “So that’s a real lifeline.”

California’s sewage projects

Currently, California treats and uses approximately 728,000 acre-feet, or approximately 18 percent of the wastewater produced annually. But the state has higher ambitions for increasing water security: New targets call for a nearly triple increase to 2 million acre-feet annually by 2030.

Supported by initiatives such as the California Water Board’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund and government support, including a $750 million grant program, several major projects are in the pipeline. Orange County, for example, is increasing the capacity of its drinking water treatment plant – already the largest in the world – to recycle 130 million gallons of wastewater per day. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is planning a new $3.4 billion recycling facility that would provide a renewable source of drinking water for 19 million Los Angeles-area customers.

For smaller communities or those with limited resources, however, a more modest approach can be just as effective, says Anne Thebo, senior researcher at the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit water conservation think tank in Oakland, California.

“The local context can really give communities flexibility in developing their water reuse plans,” she notes. Farming communities have an advantage here, she says, because many forms of irrigation don’t require treated water that’s clean enough to drink. But all communities have some flexibility in their ability to use treated wastewater, as the water used to irrigate wood or lawns may be of lower quality than that used for pasture grass such as alfalfa or raw edible crops such as strawberries and lettuce is used. Developing a water recycling plan that meets community needs can diversify a region’s water portfolio and balance overall demand.

Healdburg’s approach

When the wastewater facility was modernized in 2008, reuse was not Healdsburg’s top priority. The city had to comply with environmental regulations for discharges into the Russian River, which included maintaining a higher threshold for nutrient and pathogen removal. The $29.3 million improvement added pathogen-filtering membranes and UV light to a process that already included filtration and microbial scrubbing. The additional measure will purify the wastewater to near-potable quality and make it clean enough to be discharged into the 1,485-square-mile watershed.

But even at this quality, regional water authorities limit discharge to October through mid-May, when rain normally swells the river volume and reduces the risk of adverse impacts. In the remaining months, “we have to think about what we’re going to do with it,” says Healdsburg’s water and wastewater engineer Patrick Fuss. This became the key challenge and eventual success of the Healdsburg program – ensuring there was enough demand for this offering.

Although state regulations allow agricultural use of triple treated water, they also require permits that describe specific uses, primarily to ensure the safety of groundwater and the public. Healdsburg’s original permit included grape irrigation, as well as residential, landscape, and industrial uses. But for years it was a challenge to find enough buyers for the treated water, says Fuss. The recycled water, while free, is not potable and requires separate piping and hoses, resulting in a potentially expensive expense. Others had unfounded concerns about nitrate, mineral and chemical residues in the shipment that could contaminate their prized grapes.

As a result, treated wastewater continued to flow into the river until three years ago, when municipal action due to the escalating drought forced the city to fully comply with discharge regulations. The multi-faceted approach reduces the amount of wastewater entering the system from water conservation measures while increasing the demand for recycled water.

Fuss laid some of the groundwork for this by recruiting winemakers for a door-to-door campaign and involving potential participants in planning a pipeline expansion to facilitate supply. Meanwhile, the city required the use of treated water in all construction projects and made it available at two service stations. Finally, as state and regional water restrictions tightened last year, Healdsburg began free private deliveries of up to 500 gallons per subscriber each week.

According to Fuss, accommodating a wide range of users is crucial in order to balance supply and demand. “We know that we can achieve compliance during a drought if the inflow — the amount of wastewater we have to treat — is reduced because people are saving while demand is greater on the other end,” he says. A wet or normal year would turn the equation on its head, which without adequate taps would quickly overflow the system.

Controlling the quality of sanitation is actually a key motivator for water recycling projects in California, Thebo says. And usually, the development of multiple advantages seems to be the common factor of success. “They are at the heart of the partnerships that form between cities, producers, environmental groups and a host of other stakeholders. And they are also what engages the community and local politicians.”

There doesn’t seem to be a lack of community involvement in Healdsburg. Popularity actually killed the residential delivery program, which at its peak served more than a quarter of city households. “It was [financially] Unsustainable as a long-term strategy,” says Rob Scates, Superintendent of Water and Wastewater, “but it definitely helped spread the word.” Water is still being given away at gas stations, and several transport companies are delivering for a small fee (Simmons reports that he pays $40 for every bi-weekly delivery).

However, the city is taking no chances. As an added reassurance, it has recently expanded permitted uses to pasture, commercial orchards and non-dairy cattle. And plans are in the works to expand the pipe network — painted purple to denote nonpotable supply — directly into the city for municipal irrigation, thanks to a $7 million federal grant. “Word has got around that the water quality is very good and that it’s a pretty reliable system,” says Scates. “Now [users] are really addicted to it. They make sure we follow the rules.”

As an early adopter, Dennis De La Montanya, owner of De La Montanya Vineyards, has no qualms. He’s watered the grapes that produce his award-winning Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the purple pipes for years. “It’s been a real boon in terms of water availability. And we don’t pollute groundwater resources or the public water system,” he says. “It’s a win-win situation.”

Concrete results like these highlight the true value of recycled water, says Thebo. “So many of the challenges of water scarcity can feel insurmountable. But when people can see solutions that impact their daily lives, I think that becomes a point of pride for the community.”

This article originally appeared in Grist, a non-profit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories about climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

The post A California City’s Wastewater Is Serving to It Battle Drought appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.