Who uses recycled water in the United States?
Tens of millions of people, because many lakes and rivers large enough to serve as municipal water sources also are used as wastewater drains. For example, about 220 wastewater plants are allowed to discharge into the Colorado River with less treatment than is required for reservoir augmentation. The river supplies roughly 18 million Californians with drinking water. What about intentional recycling? Only a few agencies nationwide pump purified wastewater into a source of drinking water for the people who generated the wastewater in the first place. Orange County helped pioneer one such process more than 30 years ago. At about the same time, agencies in northern Virginia started using recycled water in a reservoir that is the primary water source for more than 1 million people. Recently, water officials in San Jose raised the prospect of recharging streams and aquifers across Santa Clara County with recycled water. When did low-end water recycling start in San Diego? The city began tes
