WHAT IS WATER MINING?
Mining is the extraction of a substance of value from the earth. The process of extracting valuable water from the underground sewerage network by treating raw sewage to high standards is called Water Mining. The Australian Capital Territory Electricity and Water (ACTEW), a progressive utility company in Australia is credited to have coined the term “water mining” (Butler & McCormick, 1996). Water Mining is often used interchangeably with Sewer Mining. However, given the ‘substance of value’ being mined in this process is water and not sewer, describing it as sewer mining is rather ambiguous, and carries a negative connotation. In the United States, water mining schemes are commonly described as Satellite Treatment Systems, referring to their outpost location away from the central sewage treatment plant. The location of water mining facilities closer to the point of water use has also been highlighted in some literature, giving water mining schemes the title of Point-of-sale Reuse. Fig
