{"id":40431,"date":"2023-12-22T11:38:26","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T16:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=40431"},"modified":"2023-12-22T11:38:36","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T16:38:36","slug":"toilet-to-tap-approved-for-california-could-be-coming-to-polk-county-treated-sewage-coming-back-into-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/12\/22\/toilet-to-tap-approved-for-california-could-be-coming-to-polk-county-treated-sewage-coming-back-into-homes\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Toilet-to-tap\u2019 approved for California, Could be coming to Polk County\u2014 treated sewage coming back into homes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Whoever claimed Californians were full of crap?<\/p>\n\n\n

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Officials in the Golden State this week approved new \u201ctoilet-to-tap\u201d regulations, allowing water agencies to take wastewater from homes, recycle it, and pump it back to households in an effort to boost the state\u2019s dwindling water supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt will truly be the highest quality water delivered in the state when it\u2019s done,\u201d said Darrin Polhemus, director of the Division of Drinking Water and the State Water Resources Control Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite some trepidation from consumers, officials have guaranteed the scheme is safe due to the wastewater undergoing three rigorous stages of treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The water is treated for pathogens and viruses in a way officials say is so thorough, minerals have to be added back to improve the taste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If one fails, there\u2019s still two remaining in its place as backups to make sure nothing goes untreated,\u201d Polhemus said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

California is notoroiusly drought-prone and depends on water from other states via the Colorado River.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Polk County is hoping to get ahead with a pilot project in Lakeland<\/a> that could turn wastewater into drinking water. Testing at the new $2.5 million facility began a couple of months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been under construction for about a year and it\u2019s a process that will allow us to test what it would take to take reclaimed water up to the standards regulators are going to be happy with,\u201d said Tamara Richardson, Polk County\u2019s utilities director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The facility takes wastewater through a six step process that includes carbon filtration and U-V disinfection. It\u2019s all designed to scrub reclaimed water of harmful chemicals, bacteria, hormones and even viruses to make it safe enough to drink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California is the second state to allow the process, following Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California has been using recycled water for decades on vegetable and fruit crops and for watering lawns, but this would be the first time the technology would be used directly for drinking water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whoever claimed Californians were full of crap? Officials in the Golden State this week approved new \u201ctoilet-to-tap\u201d regulations, allowing water agencies to take wastewater from homes, recycle it, and pump… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[7123,7124],"class_list":["post-40431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-toilet-to-tap-approved-for-california","tag-could-be-coming-to-polk-county-treated-sewage-coming-back-into-homes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}