Managing Recycled Water

Abstract

US water policy includes a wide variety of uses for recycled water that includes reuse in urban, domestic, and agricultural applications for food and non-food crops, or industrial and environmental purposes, and for impoundment and groundwater recharge. Water reuse involves taking domestic wastewater, giving it a high degree of treatment, and using the resulting high-quality reclaimed water for a new, beneficial purpose. This chapter reviews the rules and regulations for recycled wastewater use. Increasingly, accepted reuses for what was formerly used once and discarded wastewater now includes augmenting traditional supplies for human consumption. However, the treatments required for these different uses differ from use level to level. For example, recycled water has long been used for landscape irrigation which requires less treatment than recycled water for drinking water. Extensive treatment and disinfection ensure that public health and environmental quality are protected.

Additional Reading

• Lauer, William William C. 2015. Vision’s Path: Management by Partnership and the Project to Prove the Feasibility of Drinking Recycled Water. Self published at Create Space Independent Publishing Platform (Amazon).

• Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., Takashi Asamo. 2007. Water Reuse: Issues, Technologies, and Applications. New York: McGraw Hill.

• National Research Council. 2012. Water Reuse: Potential for Expanding the Nation’s Water Supply through Reuse of Municipal Wastewater. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

• Wang, Xiaochang Xiaochang C. and Chongmiao Zhang. 2015. Water Cycle Management: A New Paradigm of Wastewater Reuse and Safety Control. New York: Springer.