Wastewater Treated As a Resource / State Board Approves Its Reuse for Irrigation, Industrial Needs

By REX SPRINGSTON

Localities treat water from rivers and aquifers so you can drink it.

But a lot of that drinking water also is used to run factories, wash cars and flush toilets.

The State Water Control Board voted unanimously yesterday to try a new approach.

The board approved a program that encourages cities and counties to send wastewater from their sewage plants — water from toilets and similar sources that is treated to reduce germs — to be used for activities that don’t require pure tap water.

Otherwise, that wastewater would be dumped into rivers.

“This has the potential to remove a lot of wastewater from the streams of Virginia and apply it to beneficial uses,” water board Chairman Shelton Miles said. “It’s the ultimate in recy-

cling.”

The program should lessen demand for tap water, enabling localities to cope better with growth, experts say.

For the average person, the program could mean a more reliable water supply during droughts.

“We’ve been reminded in 2007, and we were reminded in 2002″ — another drought year — “how difficult it sometimes is to count on how much water we have,” said Bill Hayden, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Quality. The DEQ provides staff for the water board.

The water-recycling program, which still requires some tweaks, should begin next year. However, it could take years for the program to take off, because new pipes will have to be laid to carry the recycled water.

Some of the recycled wastewater could be used in activities where people aren’t exposed to it. That would include irrigating crops that people don’t eat, such as trees and cotton; controlling construction dust; watering livestock; and cooling industrial equipment.

Wastewater that is cleaner but still not as pure as drinking water could be used in activities where people might be exposed to it, such as firefighting, watering lawns and the flushing of toilets in businesses.

The program will not allow recycled water to go to residential toilets, largely because there would be little control on home plumbers who might mistakenly connect wastewater to a tap.

Water recycling is being used in a few places in Virginia now.

The Hampton Roads Sanitation District, a regional agency, sends about 500,000 gallons of wastewater a day from its sewage plant in York County to the Western Refining Yorktown Inc. petroleum refinery on the York River, less than a mile away.

“The alternative is buying tap water, which is better used in supplying houses, etc.,” said Dave Pavlich, the refinery’s environmental compliance manager.

In the spring, Chesterfield County will begin sending about 8 million gallons of treated wastewater a day from its Proctor’s Creek sewage plant to Dominion Virginia Power’s nearby plant at Dutch Gap. The water will be used in a process that reduces air pollution.

That arrangement will keep nearly all of that wastewater, which contains nutrients that cause algae, out of the James River. Most of the water will evaporate, said Dominion spokesman Dan Genest.

State officials hope a formal program will encourage similar arrangements.

Water recycling has worked for years in states such as California, Arizona and Florida, experts say.

Contact Rex Springston at (804) 649-6453 or rspringston@timesdispatch.com.

Originally published by Times-Dispatch Staff Writer.

(c) 2007 Richmond Times – Dispatch. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.