Sludge Watch ==> North Carolina - purple pipes - sewage effluent cycled through the community

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

With ground water at a premium in many parts of the USA, there is a move to 
take the 'treated' sewage treatment plant effluent and put it out into the 
community for watering lawns, golf courses, pastures, street medians, and 
parks.

On the first flush, it may seem like a good idea.  Why not?

But when we look more closely, other issues are raised.  A hundred and fifty 
years ago our civilization decided to put human sewage and industrial waste 
together into the sewers and send them down a pipe to somewhere else.  We 
are now running out of 'somewhere elses'.

The technology we use to 'clean' the sewage is also about a hundred years 
old.  Lagoons, skimmers, digesters, settling ponds.  Muncipalities have 
decided to keep doing the old things bigger and bigger. More people on the 
pipeline. More industries, hospitals, slaughterhouses, laboratories, nursing 
homes, gas stations, factories..all on the same pipeline...mixing their 
wastes together in the sewer.

But as we mix disease bacteria, viruses, chemicals, hospital wastes, drugs, 
and antibiotics all together  and then make them fight in a war to the death 
with each other in a digester, we end up creating bacteria that is far more 
virulent, more antibiotic resistant, and more antimicrobial resistant.  Then 
we take the Franken-sludge solids from this mixture and put it on our 
agricultural lands.

The liquid fraction - the sewage effluent - still contains the drugs, 
hormones, detergent agents, antimicrobials, and some of the bacteria (the 
ones that survived the war of all-against-all) from the sewage treatment 
plant.  We are seeing antibiotic resistant infections soar in our 
communities.  More people die from them then car crashes, AIDS, and breast 
cancer every year.

We are risking seeding our parks and golf courses  and our children's 
playgrounds with antibiotic resistant organisms cultivated at the sewage 
treatment plant.

We need to think this over very, very carefully.

//////////////

see for example:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=91795

Appl Environ Microbiol. 2000 January; 66(1): 125–132.
American Society for Microbiology
Impact of an Urban Effluent on Antibiotic Resistance of Riverine 
Enterobacteriaceae and Aeromonas spp.


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http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/04/25/news/community/42405200426.txt

What's with all those purple pipes?

By: CANDICE REED - For the North County Times
Editor's note: This periodical feature looks at things in our community that 
make us go, 'Hmmm. ... What's up with that?'

CARLSBAD ---- Motorists in Carlsbad have probably noticed city workers 
laying down purple pipe in the middle of El Camino Real in recent weeks. In 
neighborhoods closer to the beach, there are sections of curbs painted 
purple. And in city parks, some of the water sprinklers sport the color 
purple.

What's up with that?

Carlsbad has joined other cities all over California in jumping on the 
recycling bandwagon, and the color purple ---- whether it's on a pipe, or on 
a curb on top of a sewer line, or on a sprinkler head ---- signals the 
existence of recycled water.


Purple, as it turns out, is the universal color for recycled water.

"By duplicating much of nature's process, it is now possible for us to 
purify recycled water to a level that is far beyond our drinking water 
standards," said Bill Plumber, the city's deputy engineer. "We can re-use it 
in a variety of ways."Ý

PVC pipes carrying recycled water will either feature or purple stripe or be 
colored purple entirely, for example. There are even purple valve boxes, 
purple manhole covers, purple fittings, purple valves.

The city installs separate sets of purple-colored water lines and takes 
special measures in making sure those pipes carrying recycled water are kept 
away from potable lines so there's no confusion.

The color purple is everywhere around us, it seems.

Reclaimed water comes out of purple-colored sprinklers to irrigate the La 
Costa Golf Course. City parks, nurseries, pastures, common areas in 
homeowner communities, and even street and highway medians and other 
landscaped areas use recycled water flowing through purple pipes.

There's even a state law on the books that prohibits potable water from 
being used for non-potable uses, such as landscape, irrigation and 
industrial use, if recycled water is available at a reasonable cost.

"I've been watching them put the purple pipes in the ground for a while 
now," said Jeff Sands, referring to a project on Palomar Airport Road that 
has been in progress for several months. "I'm from Florida and I don't think 
we have this program. I thought they just got a deal on purple pipe. It's 
kind of girly for pipe, don't you think?"

The city of Carlsbad has been using the purple pipes since 1994. The city 
sells about 2 acres of recycled water a year, although in the next year, 
after laying more pipe throughout the city, that will increase to 6 acres a 
year.

"Once this phase is completed we will have more than 80 miles of recycled 
(purple) pipe in Carlsbad," Plumber said. "We will have four pumping 
stations and be able to continue to recycle our water and again and again. 
One of the biggest trends in many parts of the country ---- and the world 
---- is recycling water."

Once it's processed, recycled water is extremely close to pure, potable 
water in purity, although it's not drinkable.

"It's suitable for body contact," Plumber said. "But, really, you can't 
drink it."

Even so, he said, purple's good.

"If you see that it's purple, you know we're recycling," Plumber said. 
"Purple is a good thing."

- Note: If you have a suggestion for a 'What's Up With That?' item, please 
e-mail it to masingale at nctimes.com

Candice Reed is a freelance writer. You may contact her at 
femmewriter at cox.net