What's All This Toilet Water Drinking About, Anyhow?

By Richard A. Schwartz

OK, there actually is a path from your toilet to your tap! It is very indirect. Learn more here.

My other opponent, Robert Pullen-Miles, implies in his web page that toilet water is getting into your domestic supply. It turns out that he is correct. If you think this is an issue, by all means vote for him!

The path from your toilet to your tap is indirect. Along the way a lot happens to your toilet flushings.

Your sewage eventually finds its way to the Los Angeles Hyperion sewage treatment facility in El Segundo. There it undergoes two levels of treatment, and is supposedly clean enough to dump into the ocean. Actually, most of that effluent does go into the ocean, but a small part of it is reclaimed for recycling. The periodic beach closings are NOT due to this effluent, but to other pollution sources.

At the West Basin Municipal Water District recycling plant, the recycled water is chlorinated and then given a third level of treatment by reverse osmosis filtration(RO). This method of filtration is very good at removing organic contamimants and dissolved salts; because RO water is very low in salt, it is excellent for irrigation. Note that RO also removes toxic metals such as lead, plutonium, mercury, and other heavy metals that are not removed by the Hyperion treatment. Recycled water is pretty clean, but is not certified by the state as potable. It does not directly enter the domestic supply.

Where does the recycled water go? There is a completely separate network of distribution pipes for the recycled water. The big users are the three oil refineries, golf courses, and schools. If the RO water is used for irrigation of grass areas, some of it will percolate into the subsurface. Some of the RO water is injected into wells along the coast to prevent sea water from penetrating into the low water table of the Los Angeles basin. Eventually, the injected and percolated water could be pumped from wells far from where the water entered the water table, and that well water, after normal treatment by yet another filtration and chlorination process, could find its way to your tap.

So there is your toilet water: two levels of sewage plant treatment, chlorination, filtration by reverse osmosis, percolation through several miles of earth, and a second filtration and chlorination treatment by your local water company.

If the water table is contaminated by injection from the barrier wells or by percolation, the damage is very serious. We must be very careful what we inject into those barrier wells. As far as the percolation problem goes, there are far worse sources of pollution than the recycled water. For example, a golf course may be fertilized with animal manure or chemical fertilizers containing nitrates, sulfates, phosphates, and other salts. The storm drain runoff from our streets is one of the most ugly polluters of the aquifer. Compared to this, the recycled water is pretty clean.

The bottom line: we must be very careful what we put into the water table by injection and percolation, but you need not worry about finding pieces of toilet paper floating in your tap water. Your water company is bound by state laws and regulators to deliver water of good quality. Alarmist assertion about "toilet to tap" are not at all valid.

One last point: why not use sea water as a raw material for the reverse osmosis process? We do not use sea water because the Hyperion output is a lot cleaner than sea water. Starting with cleaner water reduces the cost and work of the purifying process. Another source of water is the brackish water that penetrated from the ocean before the the coastal barrier was set up; this has a high salt content but is less salty than seawater and is less costly to purify than seawater. The economics of purifying this water where it is, vs. building a pipeline to El Segundo, are currently being studied by the West Basin Municipal Water District.

Check my opponents' statements before you vote for me!

Link to Don Dear's page: http://www.smartvoter.org/2000/11/07/ca/la/vote/dear_d/philosophy.html

Link to Rober Pullen-Miles' page: http://www.smartvoter.org/2000/11/07/ca/la/vote/pullen-miles_r/