Safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights, the General Assembly declared today, voicing deep concern that almost 900 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water.
City Achieves 80% Reduction in Sewer Overflows and Aggressively Addresses Sewer Related Odors
LOS ANGELES (July 23, 2010)—The Bureau of Sanitation continues to be aggressive in implementing various projects and programs to manage effectively and renew the City’s 6,700 mile wastewater sewer system. As a result, the Bureau of Sanitation has reduced the number of sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) by 80% since the baseline fiscal year (FY) of 2000/2001, reaching yet another record low number of SSOs this year. The City of Los Angeles wastewater collection system is operated and maintained by the Department of Public Works, Bureau of Sanitation (BOS). There were 687 recorded SSOs in 2000/2001, 444 in 2003/2004, 200 in FY 2007/2008, 159 in FY 2008/2009, and just 139 in FY 2009/10. The number of SSOs during last fiscal year is 12 percent lower than the previous year’s record low. The wastewater collection industry measures excellent system performance by the number of SSOs per 100 miles each year. The City’s metric for last fiscal year was a record low 2.07 SSOs per 100 miles per year, one of the lowest in the nation.
Equinox Center Study Shows Treated Wastewater Safe To Drink
SAN DIEGO — When it comes to the prospect of turning wastewater into drinking water, a new report from the non-partisan research group Equinox Center shows it could be safer than most would think.
“Purified, recycled water is safer to drink than what we are drinking today,” said Aaron Contorer of the Equinox Center. “A significant portion of our water today is extracted from wastewater upstream.”
The Equinox Center’s report reveals a map of some 350 sewage plants that discharge wastewater into the waterways the country draws its water from before it is treated locally.
Essentially, the report shows everyone routinely drinks recycled wastewater.
Las Vegas already recycles its wastewater to drink, and that drinking water also ends up in the San Diego water supply.
“All the tests have shown purified, recycled water is safe and clean,” said Contorer. “According to our research, it’s safer, cleaner, more reliable and uses less energy than other water sources.”
The Equinox Center’s report comes days ahead of a critical vote, when the San Diego City Council will vote on a construction contract for an $11.8 million wastewater recycling pilot project.
It is a first step that could lead to recycled water in San Diego faucets if it is deemed successful.
Other areas that have wastewater-to-tap programs included Long Beach, Orange County, Reno and the country of Singapore.
Three New Customers Will Help the Department Save 6.5 Million Gallons of Water per Year
LOS ANGELES — Furthering its commitment to expand local water supplies and reduce the City’s dependence on imported water, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) has successfully expanded its network of recycled water pipes to deliver treated reclaimed water to the newest customers in the San Fernando Valley: two local churches and the LADWP Power System, who will use recycled water for outdoor irrigation. These new customers will reduce the need for using drinking water for non-potable purposes by 20 acre feet per year (AFY) or 6.5 million gallons.
Heather Wylie was a key instigator of what must be the biggest, most important boating expedition ever undertaken on the Los Angeles River.
With two dozen others in kayaks and canoes, she braved the river’s shallow waters, paddling past garbage trucks at the water’s edge, homeless bathers and other unexpected riparian obstacles.
“I’ve never had so much fun on a boating trip,” Wylie told me. “It was a new kind of adventure.”
That adventure cost Wylie, then a 29-year-old government biologist, her job — and $60,000 salary — with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But it helped save the L.A. River.
Here’s an entertaining video describing how bottled water is bad for the environment and promoting switching back to tap water. There’s an interesting comment on how our clean water infrastructure is under-funded as well:
Link to video
Annie Leonard used to spout jargon. She reveled in the sort of geek-speak that glazes your eyeballs.
Externalized costs, paradigm shifts, the precautionary principle, extended producer responsibility.
That was before she discovered cartoons.
The Environmental Protection Agency proposed daily pollution limits for lakes in nine urban and suburban parks in the Los Angeles area that have been identified as impaired due to nutrients, mercury, trash, pesticides, and polychlorinated biphenyls. EPA and the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board are racing to beat a March 2012 deadline to establish total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for waterways in California’s Los Angeles and Ventura counties, a deadline set in a 1999 consent decree. Half of the over 90 TMDLs that must be established are in place, according to EPA documents. The latest proposed rule lists an additional 32 limits. The federal agency is stepping in because the regional board is short on resources and EPA can establish the TMDLs in less time, according to the EPA documents. The lakes and the pollutants contributing to their impairment are: Peck Road Park Lake – nitrogen, phosphorus, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, PCB’s, and trash; Lincoln Park Lake – nitrogen, phosphorus, trash; Echo Park Lake – nitrogen, phosphorus, chlordane, dieldrin, PCBs, trash; Lake Calabasas – nitrogen, phosphorus; El Dorado Park Lakes – nitrogen, phosphorus, mercury; Legg lakes (North, Center and Legg) – nitrogen, phosphorus; Puddingstone Reservoir – nitrogen, phosphorus, chlordane, DDT, PCBs, mercury; Santa Fe Dam Park – nitrogen, phosphorus; and Lake Sherwood – mercury.
Water and Wastewater Equipment Mfg Association
The DWP has a dismal record on providing local sustainable sources of water from water recycling, aquifer management and rainwater capture. L.A. should separate water and power into two departments.
During the rainy season, the city of L.A. sends 100 million gallons of untreated runoff into the Pacific Ocean.
Tuesday, the city’s engineering department signed off on six standard plans that can be used to prevent some of the flow coming from parkways, highways, alleyways and cemented curb areas and divert it into the ground where it can recharge groundwater and prevent pollutants from reaching waterways. The plans give specific guidelines for installing swales, vegetation, permeable pavement and other systems to prevent storm water from flowing over nonporous surfaces into storm drains.
“What we’re trying to do here is take storm water or urban runoff and infiltrate it in streets or alleys and make it consistent so that people aren’t frustrated with trying to do something innovative,” said Gary Moore, engineer for the city of L.A. “We’ve developed standard plans, we’ve done the details, we’ve done the engineering to enable the city or a developer to use the plans to implement the desired solution.”
Developed in partnership with the city’s Board of Public Works, Bureau of Sanitation and Bureau of Engineering, the standard plans have been in the works for six months and will be available for free online starting July 9 at http://www.eng.lacity.org.
“There are more than 6,500 miles of streets in Los Angeles,” Moore said of the plans that will be used for street reconstruction, street widening, landscape medians and other projects. “There’s a lot of potential.”
