Sunday, January 27, 2008
News

Waste not, want not

Toilet water to drinking water may soon be a reality for many Georgians

RELIEF ON THE HORIZON?

But while Gwinnett is exploring new horizons to address the increased demand for water against a depleted supply, the city of Atlanta is mired in the past. Specifically, a century-old water infrastructure and a five-year-old project to overhaul it.
 
Janet Ward, spokesperson for the city, says she’s aware of the new plant that went online in Orange County in November, but that “it’s my understanding that plant was massively expensive. We’re already under obligation to do the plant upgrades at a cost of $3.9 billion.”
 
Once the overhaul is completed, Ward says she believes that much of the current water crisis facing the city will be solved. A lot of the leaking pipes will be fixed, preventing huge losses of water before it ever reaches your sink. And treatment plant overhauls will produce more efficient processing, which will require less fresh water to be discharged along with effluent—wastewater—to balance out the levels of human waste still remaining in the water.
 
Besides, says Ward, the water that’s being discharged currently into the Chattahoochee is already pretty clean.

“For all intents and purposes, our sewage is treated to a degree where someone could conceivably drink it,” she says.
 
But Atlanta will surely have to come up with a more clever concept than plugging leaky sewer pipes.

“The drought we face demands that there’s a lot more to be done,” says Pavlostathis. “The technology is there and the safeguards are there. Whether it can be done or should be done is a matter of political will.”
 
This may prove to be the case for metro Atlanta as well. With more strain being put on our water supply with each newly transplanted Ohioan, new ideas must be entertained. Ward says her people are open to suggestions.

“All options are on the table at this point,” she admits. SP