Broadcast version by Kathleen Shannon for California News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration
After an Orange County resident flushes her toilet, the water flows through the Southern California community’s sewer system, meanders its way to the sanitation plant, has its solids removed, is piped to a wastewater recycling facility next door and undergoes three different purification processes until it is clean enough to drink.
“It tastes like water,” said Mehul Patel, executive director of operations for the Orange County Water District’s project, after taking a gulp from a clear plastic cup at the sampling station, as he stood outside the final purification process facility on a warm afternoon earlier this month.
“It’s just like any other water, but it’s gone through a lot,” he said. “People shouldn’t judge where it came from, but where it is now.”
No large community in the U.S., not even Orange County, is taking water from toilets and transforming it directly into clean drinking water right now. But Patel’s demonstration might offer a glimpse of the future, as states and communities across the country design new plants that will do just that, giving communities more control over their water supply as the climate gets drier.