Toilet to Tap Water

[Bob Orts]

When sewer treatment plants discharge their effluent into retention basins for dispersal back into the water supply, in essence your drinking treated toilet water. Hate to break it to you, but many man-made areas for riparian, environmental/wildlife habitats, marshes, and even lakes are made from treated effluent. Ultimately it ends up back into the drinking supply.

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by Bob Orts

When sewer treatment plants discharge their effluent into retention basins for dispersal back into the water supply, in essence your drinking treated toilet water. Hate to break it to you, but many man-made areas for riparian, environmental/wildlife habitats, marshes, and even lakes are made from treated effluent. Ultimately it ends up back into the drinking supply.

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Bob,

I believe here in Hawaii (at least on Oahu) the water that is treated is actually released into the Ocean.

...The advanced primary effluent is then discharged through a 13,971-ft long outfall, the diffuser at the end jetting the effluent into the surrounding ocean water at a depth of 240 ft, one of the deepest outfalls in the world. The near-shore part of the outfall is buried in a 15-ft deep trench cut in the ocean floor....

From the Book Honolulu Sewage Plant Pioneers Advanced Primary Treatment, Has Deepest Ocean Outfall

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Coming home soon!

[Rumi in Hawaii]

Oh, love you Punatics....Derrier water and Pottymouth...too good!

Just a point - we don't "make" new water on the planet, right, so we're essentially drinking dinosaur pee, obviously filtered thru lots of other critters/people first.

I, too, am reluctant to drink tap water, but I'm sure I'm just being foolish - and I'm still hesitant to drink my wonderful UV rat-piss-from-the-roof water, altho I'm sure it's just fine. Habits are hard to break. I think having my catchment water post-filtering tested will finally convince me that it's OK to drink. Anyone recommend a testing facility?

Also, would like to recommend a great (humorous but also very serious) book called "Humanure".... we all need to rethink our aversion to pee and poop and figure out how to re-use these resources sooner rather than later.... you think oil is limited, how about water? Granted, we in Puna-land are certainly lucky with the usual rainfall, but after living in Colorado and Arizona for 30+ years, I still can't get used to letting the water run out the faucet while I'm brushing my teeth. And I HATE to see that water come out the overflow pipe off the catchment tank! Just recycling....

Katie

Wherever you go, there you are.

[Daniel]

Katie,

For water testing call Carl at Pololei Labs, 938-0560. Very affordable prices and a great guy.

I'm almost certain some cities have been doing this for years, it isnt a new thing, I remember as a kid growing up in utah being afraid to drink Salt Lake City water because it was recycled toilet water...

Daniel R Diamond

[gtill]

In LA, i remember the water to be some godawful soup, compared to the Canadian water we knew. that was in 59.

But pretty soon we didn't even think of it, like smog if you can't see the air you don't trust it(explains Kona population) also water, no see no trust. The first target market kona!

Real super cold water from deep in the ocean, a few miles north of kona the NELHA yard brings seawater up from some 3 miles deep with a ? amount of grade A deepsea fresh mineral water Which originally sold for 9$ a bottle in japan. I believe it has dropped to 5$ or less, and they are even putting some for sale in Hawaii someone is making a killing, what's the states cut.

This was extracted from an "Ocean Thermal Energy Technology"non intermittant, akaNELHA). Where seaweed, fish, algae, abalones, and others now grow, by private businesses. But now grown harvested and sold by businesses! The pipe is leaking, and they're trying to get the state to pay for repair.

This facility was constructed with great cost to provide an alternate energy source to that side of the isle. Deep water pumped up and somehow run through the plant and voila, Electricity and fresh water.

It actually worked for some years, but biofouled (clogged up) and they gave up. But it did produce fresh and salt reduced water water(brackish)! During this time UH wasen't looking to produce water, they were relying on the electricity to keep themselves in business, which was slowing down.

To justify the investment, they went to fish farm route, work for the students. (this was the origin of the ("Milkfish Project"). More degrees than a compass. Finally it was privatised, does it pay for itself?

But the fact is, it is a pure water source, and a low saline source, which is used for desalination. The cleaner and low salt, water is easy to desalinate. Even if proven and put away till an emergency, the best use to benefit the taxpayers should be the determining factor.

And what happened to the generation facility, it clogged, and nobody tried to fix it. That tech is now being supplied to privates, not islanders. At millions each in the marianas, Japan already has them, all derived from UH test, but followed through, even if an outsider had to be called in.

UH just farmed fish, that engineering isn't our strength. And fish are more fun. Geothermal would have suffered the same fate except for outside help, and LETting them do it all!

Multi millions of state tax funds built these facilities. What a waste of state money!

[Les C]

quote:

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Anyone recommend a testing facility?

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Another tester is Bob's Catchment Testing in Kea'au, 936-3426.

[Guest]

Here is an opportunity donate a liter of clean water, that was actually recycled, to a child in need somewhere in the world.

A really funny video can be seen here, the companies spokesmen accidentally drinks the dirty water at the end of the video instead of the clean cup.

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Damons Digest

Acceptance will take you further in life then Denial ever will