Daytona Beach Looks To Join Leaders In Water Reuse
By Peak Johnson
The city of Daytona Beach, FL, is looking to transform itself into a hub for potable reuse.
According to The Daytona Beach News-Journal, the effort “is a demonstration project to explore what it would take and how much it would cost to treat a portion of the city’s wastewater stream — flushed from toilets, tubs and washing machines across the city — to the higher standard of drinking water, instead of discharging it to the Halifax River.”
Hardy Smith, Daytona’s city government relations administrator, told the News-Journal that “Daytona Beach is ‘about capped out’ on the amount of water it’s allowed to withdraw from city wells under its permit from the St. Johns River Water Management District.”
Smith added that the city is taking on various projects in order to make better use of its wastewater, including the use of “a tank to hold more treated wastewater and a project to rehydrate a swamp.”
A separate state permit and review is needed before the water can be put into Daytona’s drinking water.
If successful, such a change would put the city on par with national leaders in drinking water recycling. Last year, after facing increasing water problems and extensive drought, California saw recycled wastewater as a solution.
However, according to University of California, Riverside, treating wastewater so that it meets health standards for agricultural reuse can be costly. Researchers at the university had been developing a model to demonstrate how wastewater treatment can be used to produce a water supply that is sustainable and affordable.
The research team claims that the model it has developed treats wastewater to state standards for pathogens.
In Pierce County, WA, the idea of recycled sewage was part of a $342 million expansion of the Chambers Creek Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant.
While putting in place the irrigation system to make use of the reclaimed water will take some time, other benefits of the sewer plant upgrade are close, according to The News Tribune.
The project is primarily aimed at equipping the plant to handle wastewater from additional households and businesses, but is also expected to make the millions of gallons of treated wastewater discharged into Puget Sound each day safer for the marine environment.
To read more about potable reuse projects visit Water Online’s Water Reuse Solutions Center.