What will the small Texas town of Big Spring have in common with the heavily populated Orange County of California? Give up? Big Spring is going to build a waste water recovery plant to produce drinking water. Yes, the people of Big Spring (wonder where the big spring went to?) are going to start drinking recycled waste (sewage) water as do people in Orange County. Do I have you thirsty yet?
The space station recycles water for drinking, so if it is good enough for the astronauts. . . OK, I know it sounds bad, but it is supposed to be as safe as or safer than water collected by other means. You know, I have no idea what is in the water I am pumping out of my well and I bet you city dwellers have no idea where all your water comes from. Houston gets its water from Lake Houston and Lake Conroe and from some deep wells. Some of those deep wells produced water that was highly radio active. It was all over the news a while back. Now you don’t hear a thing about it. The water that fills Lake Conroe comes down stream via the river and who knows what gets dumped in there.
I can see in the future that pure water may be worth its weight in gold. Who knows, our drinking water may have gold in it (grin). OK, got to go get a drink, this has made me thirsty. You all have a great day, you hear?
First thought? YUCK!!!! But, if it's good enough for Space Cadets at NASA,it's good enough for us. :-0
ReplyDeleteMy water comes from a big deep well just right over there. Found out they are blending it with some lake water now, but it's fine.
I got a well on my property but I betcha now it's dried up cause of the ground water pumping from all the gas wells in the area now.
Shoot,water may become more valuable than gasoline someday soon. What ya think?
I often state that we drink swamp water and it is sort of true. Our water is from the La Fourche Bayou. Surface collected (mosquito larva, floaters, decayed vegetation) is what they call it.
ReplyDeleteI just brewed a cup of coffee with it. This part of the state is all septic tanks. They are supposed to be sewerage treatment plants. I have one and it is a septic tank. Guess where the overflow goes.
Even if it didn't the Lafourche Bayou comes out of the Mississippi which is the sewer ditch of America.
Most of our water comes from lake Michigan, with a few shallow wells. But it's true, traditional human waste treatment has made all normal sources of water just completely disgusting to think about.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about more precious that gold. I still think the obvois solution is the best. How rare can something be that falls from the sky. At least for most of us ;)
We use the water from our river, that has a sand and rock bottom. But,,that doesn't mean there's not impurities in it.
ReplyDeleteGotta use what you gotta use. And i use a great filter in my house.
Water is going to be the currency of the future, no doubt!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure most of us don't really want to know where the majority of our water comes from anyway!
Like they say..."ignorance is bliss!"
We get our water from a spring...not sure the DEP would approve but the system has been in place for a lot years. My grandparts hauled water from the same spring up to the mid 70's. They also had an outhouse. They lived in a log cabin with pink aluminium siding and no plumbing. They didn't trust banks either. The log cabin was torn down and sold to someone who wanted to rebuild it elsewhere. Now we have houseing developents moving in with their own sewage treatment plants. There are three treatment plants within a square mile. the township , farmers running it, don't want to get into public services. I see their point, we are poor rual. but not sure it's good for the future. We have lots of water in the east...not sure how clean it is! we don't drink our spring water, I buy water it drink just to be safe...it is water close to the surface. my neighbors all have wells, high Fe, they can't drink it. Yes, water is something we need to start taking a hard look at.
ReplyDeleteBen, I am also leery of some of the stuff they put in water to purify it. And yes, good clean water is getting scarce and valuable.
ReplyDeleteOldfool, sounds like you better watch that water, it might take shape, rise up and bite you on the . . .
Grant, it can always be distilled. That should remove most of the junk from it if you dump out what comes out below 212 degrees and stop collecting when the temperature goes up. Reverse osmosis should be better than nothing.
Trouble, we all should use some kind of filter. I am just too lazy or stubborn.
HJ, I don’t know, but I do know that nothing quenches my thirst better than a cool (not cold) glass of water.
Jill, is that spring you are talking about on the road to Renfrew? Last July when I drove that road there were people getting water from that spring. I wondered at the time if it was still good since all the development up on the hill.
When I worked for the Water Department in Nashville, TN, I got a brief tour from one of the managers because I asked questions. I asked about a large section of open tanks that was unused. He said that they used to contain sand that was used as a final filter, but the tests finally convinced the authorities that the water was already cleaner going out of the wastewater treatment section than the water taken out of the Cumberland River upstream that was treated and used for the drinking water. So, if what was being put back in the river was cleaner than what was being taken out originally, seems that using the wastewater treatment plant stuff would be an improvement?
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