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Potable Water Reuse: What Are the Microbiological Risks?

  • Water and Health (T Wade, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

With the increasing interest in recycling water for potable reuse purposes, it is important to understand the microbial risks associated with potable reuse. This review focuses on potable reuse systems that use high-level treatment and de facto reuse scenarios that include a quantifiable wastewater effluent component.

Recent Findings

In this article, we summarize the published human health studies related to potable reuse, including both epidemiology studies and quantitative microbial risk assessments (QMRA). Overall, there have been relatively few health-based studies evaluating the microbial risks associated with potable reuse. Several microbial risk assessments focused on risks associated with unplanned (or de facto) reuse, while others evaluated planned potable reuse, such as indirect potable reuse (IPR) or direct potable reuse (DPR).

Summary

The reported QMRA-based risks for planned potable reuse varied substantially, indicating there is a need for risk assessors to use consistent input parameters and transparent assumptions, so that risk results are easily translated across studies. However, the current results overall indicate that predicted risks associated with planned potable reuse scenarios may be lower than those for de facto reuse scenarios. Overall, there is a clear need to carefully consider water treatment train choices when wastewater is a component of the drinking water supply (whether de facto, IPR, or DPR). More data from full-scale water treatment facilities would be helpful to quantify levels of viruses in raw sewage and reductions across unit treatment processes for both culturable and molecular detection methods.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge Drs. Philip Berger, Mr. Robert Bastian, and Jamie Strong for their insightful comments and critical review of the manuscript.

Funding

Mr. Soller and Eftim report grants from the EPA. The research described in this article was funded by the US EPA Office of Water, Office of Science and Technology under contract number EP-C-16-011 to ICF, LLC. This work has been subject to formal Agency review. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the US EPA.

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  1. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water, Office of Science and Technology, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, 20460, USA

    Sharon P. Nappier

  2. Soller Environmental, LLC, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Jeffrey A. Soller

  3. ICF, Fairfax, VA, USA

    Sorina E. Eftim

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  1. Sharon P. Nappier
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  2. Jeffrey A. Soller
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Correspondence to Sharon P. Nappier.

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Nappier, S.P., Soller, J.A. & Eftim, S.E. Potable Water Reuse: What Are the Microbiological Risks?. Curr Envir Health Rpt 5, 283–292 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40572-018-0195-y

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