turning sewage into drinking water

The article entitled ... Turning Sewage into Drinking Water ... appears in the Spring/Summer issue of Small Flows Magazine 2008. Like many other articles on the topic of transforming sewage into drinking water appreciable literary liberties are taken respecting reality and the health of mankind.

To the best of my knowledge, in America, we do not have or utilize on a commercial basis technology which consistently renders pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors and chemicals to a level "safe" for humans to consume as it leaves our municipal sewage treatment plants.

Moreover, we do not have large scale on-going testing to determine if our current commerical municipal wastewater treatment sysems actually consistently process pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors or chemicals under varying influent strenghts and volumes.

Most all the articles about turning sewage into drinking water are at best highly problematical and limited to a select number of installations designed to make a point on a relatively limited scale. In the vast majority of installations cited in the articles, one major component is the application of this treated effluent being placed back into the ground under the assumption this soil interface is NOT comtaminated itself. Given the rate of contamination of our soil interface world wide and especially in America, this to me is at best highly speculative.

Government and for-profit water purveyors have the need to promote turning sewage into drinking water for any number of reasons. One all the potable (drinking) water available to the all of mankind amounts to less than 1/2 of 1% of all the potable water sources available on Earth. And potable (drinking) water amounts to less that 3% of all water available on Earth.

In the USA, especially under the Bush administration, the door has been held wide open for the for-profit multinational giant water purveyors to own, operate and distribute water to unsuspecting citizens of the gross lack of governmental oversight, let alone "citizen" oversight of their actions. Were Americans to truly be aware and comprehend the implications of corporate ownership of their water, it is doubtful they would permit it.

When as an industry we choose to address topics like turning sewage into drinking water, I invite us to be aware of the implications of our comments, especially upon the citizens who most often are not aware of the nuances of the terms we choose to use.