IS THIS REALLY GREEN

Perspective for your consideration … What does it look like when it’s fixed…?

The use of effluent water for irrigation could be a short-term solution to the water shortage in Lake Havasu City....By Tony Waggoner…Saturday, November 8, 2008 8:33 PM MST…excerpted … “We can conserve better with effluent water,” Water Resources Coordinator Doyle Wilson said. “But we have to make sure we don’t put all our eggs in one basket.” Effluent water is recovered from flushed toilets and drained bathtubs. The city’s switch from septic tanks to sewers should allow for a greater amount of effluent water to help compensate for its expanding population and allow the city to reduce the amount of water it takes from the Colorado River. The city is generating almost 3 million gallons of effluent water a day, among three-wastewater treatment plants, Wilson said. Most of that water comes from irrigation. In October 2008, the city generated 2.8 million gallons. From September 2007 to now, Wilson said the city has varying levels of between 243 to 294 acre-feet of water treated a month. Of that effluent or “gray water,” 40-79 percent is being reused for irrigation throughout the city. The rest empties into percolation ponds. You may contact the reporter at twaggoner@havasunews.com.

I rise to salute what at first blush appears to be honestly “green” thinking respecting the use our current mandated ADEQ rules permit one to utilize sewage effluent. Re-use in the manner suggested by folks in Lake Havasu are not without both short term and long term public health implications, but, they represent a far more progressive and thoughtful approach to the manner we currently utilize all forms of water.

I invite us to use caution as we mover forward in these areas as the scope of our current knowledge on the short and long term public health implications of the residuals in all forms of domestic sewage is essentially unknown. The testing protocols currently utilized to determine the relative – safety – of any sewage effluent is simply a matter of political expediency. This should not deter us from honestly evaluation every possible reuse aspect to water, but, we should, I believe temper our judgments in favor of public health.

There is laying in the weeds a 900 pound gorilla – “for-profit-corporate-water-purveyors” – who truly do not want these forms of public reuse to come to fruition as they will cut into their potentially very lucrative profit$.

For an overview I invite you to consider reading – BLUE GOLD – the fight to stop the corporate theft of the world’s water. One can choose to discount this view and perspective at your own peril.


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… People should never be afraid of their government, government should always be afraid of the people …

With my personal “thanks” to Michael C. Ruppert …From the Wilderness… who closes his blog … "Fascism ought more properly be called corporatism because it is the perfect merger of power between the corporation and the state." … Benito Mussolini

And let me be even a bit bolder, I am most willing to present and discuss any water issue before any audience in Arizona where open full disclosure and two way dialog is permitted.

Website address for Paul F. Miller’s blog …. http://energeticsynergy.blogspot.com

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