Reclaimed
water use increases Long Beach
By
Betsy Truberg
On-line Forty-Niner
The
City of Long Beach is one of the more aggressive
cities participating in the attempt to conserve
water, said Ryan Alsop, manager of governmental
and public affairs for the Long Beach Water
Department.
"We
plan to drought-proof Long Beach,"
Alsop said. Currently, the city uses almost
two billion gallons of reclaimed water each
year, "to irrigate parks, golf courses,
cemeteries, and other large landscapes."
The
future plan is to use more reclaimed water
and to make the current system more efficient,
according to the Long Beach Water Department.
The Reclaimed Water System Expansion project's
purpose is to "loop the system"
to ensure adequate flow efficiency of the
current reclaimed water system, Alsop said.
The project is planned to reduce the need
to use potable water, which is more expensive.
Reclaimed
water in Long Beach, according to the Long
Beach Water Department's Web site, is "wastewater
that has been fully treated by a three-stage
process for industrial and irrigation uses."
The wastewater comes from toilets, showers,
sinks, dishwashers and clothes washers.
The water runs through the sewer system,
and some of it is then sent to the Long
Beach Reclamation Plant. Drinking water,
or potable water, has strict guidelines
and concentration limits for materials such
as copper, chlorine, and microscopic organisms,
said Richard Johnson, associate director
of environmental health and safety at CSULB.
Despite
the increase in purple-pipe sightings, reclaimed
water usage has not increased on campus,
said Robert Quirk, director of facilities
management, but the school's water supplier,
the City of Long Beach, has expanded reclaimed
water usage in conservation efforts.
The
purple pipes, located near the Physical
Education Building, are being used for an
irrigation project on campus. According
to Quirk, the school is not using any more
reclaimed water than it has in previous
years. Quirk said that the reclaimed water
source on campus is located between the
Japanese Gardens and Parkside Commons. It
is used strictly for irrigation purposes,
such as watering the baseball field.
"The city tests the potable water about
six times an hour," Johnson said. He
said no threat is posed to the students'
or public's health with an increase of reclaimed
water in the city or at the university.
He explained that reclaimed water has a
higher mineral content than potable water.
"Technically
speaking, reclaimed water that is delivered
through Long Beach is bacteria-static, meaning
there is no bacteria at all," Johnson
said. "But is it good to drink? No."
Biological
science professor and aquatic toxicologist
Zed Mason confirmed the safety of using
reclaimed water, stating that there is "essentially
no problem" with reclaimed water once
it has been processed by the processing
plant, and argues that it is okay even for
drinking. Mason explained that often times
even bottled water bought from a store uses
reclaimed water that has been thoroughly
tested. "Although aesthetically it
sounds disgusting, from the biological perspective
it's really not that bad," he said.
"As a biologist and a conservationist,
[using reclaimed water] is probably the
best thing we can do."
The
cost of phase "1-D" of the project,
which will include construction of over
12,000 linear feet of recycle water pipeline,
is $5 million. Forty-five percent of the
total cost has been paid for by state and
federal grants, according to the water department's
Web site. Transmission pipelines will be
constructed within Redondo, Stearns and
Clark Avenue.
By
using reclaimed water for irrigation, the
city "saves millions of dollars and
billions of gallons of potable water,"
Alsop said. The reclaimed water project
is about conservation. According to him,
by using reclaimed water in potable water's
place whenever possible, the city saves
money and can pass those savings on to the
customers.
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