{"id":36444,"date":"2014-05-06T10:31:17","date_gmt":"2014-05-06T15:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=36444"},"modified":"2014-05-06T10:31:17","modified_gmt":"2014-05-06T15:31:17","slug":"wichita-falls-sees-wastewater-recycling-as-solution-to-drinking-water-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/05\/06\/wichita-falls-sees-wastewater-recycling-as-solution-to-drinking-water-shortage\/","title":{"rendered":"Wichita Falls Sees Wastewater Recycling As Solution To Drinking Water Shortage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Julie<\/a>

Shelley Kofler KERA News<\/p>

Julie Spence of Wichita Falls says she trusts the city to adequately treat wastewater for drinking.<\/p><\/div>\n

From KERA News:<\/a><\/em><\/h4>\n

Wichita Falls could soon become the first in the country where half of the drinking water comes directly from wastewater.<\/p>\n

Yes, that includes water from toilets. For some citizens, that’s a little tough to swallow.<\/p>\n

Mayor Glenn Barham says three years of extreme drought have changed life for 104,000 people living in Wichita Falls, which is about 140 miles northwest of Dallas.<\/p>\n

\u201c(There\u2019s) no outside irrigation whatsoever with potable water. Car washes are closed one day a week.\u00a0 If you drain your pool to do maintenance you aren\u2019t allowed to fill it,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\n
The mayor says citizens are pitching in and have cut their city\u2019s water use by more than one-third.\u00a0 Still, water supplies are still expected to run out in two years, which is why the city has built a 13-mile pipeline that connects its wastewater plant to the plant where water is purified for drinking.<\/figure>\n
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

That\u2019s right: What residents flush down the toilet will be part of what\u2019s cleaned up and sent back to them through the tap.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s gross,\u201d said Marissa Oliveras as she ordered a glass of tap water with her sandwich at Gidget\u2019s Sandwich Shack in downtown Wichita Falls.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean it\u2019s recycled wastewater we could be drinking,\u201d she said.\u00a0 She plans to switch to bottled water.<\/p>\n

\"Precipitation<\/a>

Victor Murphy \/ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/p>

Precipitation records for the last three years in Wichita Falls, Texas, one of the areas hit hardest by the drought. The brown line is the expected precipitation level, and the green area is actual levels.<\/p><\/div>\n

Kira Smith saves money ordering tap water at the restaurant now, but says she\u2019ll pay $1.89 for a bottle of water when the recycled wastewater begins to flow.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely grosses me out,\u201d Smith said.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m sure that they would clean it and filter it up to standards.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a mindset kind of thing. You know what I\u2019m talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n

Barham says the city has undertaken a massive education campaign to reassure residents that the water will be clean and safe to drink, and to explain the science behind the treatment process.<\/p>\n

Water experts know it as \u201cdirect potable reuse,\u201d something that\u2019s been tried on a much smaller scale in Big Spring, Texas.<\/p>\n

But some people unceremoniously call it \u201ctoilet-to tap,\u201d a moniker that Utilities Operations Manager Daniel Nix says isn\u2019t really accurate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vast majority of water that enters a wastewater plant did not come from a toilet.\u00a0 It comes from sinks, and bathtubs and washing machines and dishwashers,\u201d he said. Nix said less than 20 percent of wastewater comes from toilets.<\/p>\n

Currently, wastewater here is treated and then emptied into the nearby Big Wichita River, where a natural cleansing process takes place. The water flows downstream to Lake Texoma, a big reservoir, where other cities treat it again before drinking it.<\/p>\n

Nix says his city will recreate that natural cleansing process at its treatment plant.<\/p>\n

Nix shows off several buildings full of equipment that will soon take the city\u2019s dwindling supply of water from Lakes Arrowhead and Kickapoo and blend it with the treated wastewater. It will be a 50-50 mix that gets extra chlorination, advanced filtering and reverse osmosis.<\/p>\n

Nix says the extra treatment will eliminate unwanted minerals and pathogens like cryptosporidium and giardia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just don\u2019t have time to put the water out in a body of water, a wetlands, or lake and allow nature to take its course,\u201d Nix said.\u00a0 \u201cInside the treatment plant, we speed those processes up so rather than wait several weeks for UV rays from the sun to disinfect or kill bacteria we do it in the plant using chlorine. It takes a matter of minutes to do it instead of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Gidget\u2019s Snack Shack, Stephen Johnson is fine with what the city is about to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s a safe process and it\u2019s potable, I don\u2019t see an issue with it.\u00a0 It\u2019s water,\u201d Johnson said with a shrug.<\/p>\n

The restaurant\u2019s owner, Julie Spence, says the city has done a lot of research and testing so she trusts officials to get it right.<\/p>\n

She says she has to.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s either that or pack up and move,” Spence said. “This is where I was born and raised and I\u2019m not ready to close my business and pack up and move.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barham says he\u2019s reserved the right to take the first sip when the recycled wastewater begins to flow.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s optimistic that most of his neighbors in Wichita Falls will also raise a glass and drink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From KERA News: Wichita Falls could soon become the first in the country where half of the drinking water comes directly from wastewater. Yes, that includes water from toilets. For some citizens, that’s a little tough to swallow. Mayor Glenn Barham says three years of extreme drought have changed life for 104,000 people living in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[61,208,33,243,282,270,85,275],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36444"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36444"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36456,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36444\/revisions\/36456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}