San Francisco to adopt recycled water but not for drinking ...

The Toowoomba City Council often uses Orange County California as an example of recycled water use in its argument for adopting a recycled water for drinking strategy for Toowoomba.

San Francisco (also in California) has announced that it will adopt a new recycled water strategy for the city but it will not include using recycled water for drinking.

Water recycling may come to city

The City has ambitious recycling plans for paper, aluminium and plastics, but it may come as a surprise that San Francisco is the only county in the Bay Area that does not have a major recycling program for an even more important resource: water.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is set to change that later this month, when it adopts a final plan for the $4.3 billion program to upgrade The City’s aging Hetch Hetchy water system.

The plan includes $204 million for the first phase of a citywide recycled water program. The first phase would recycle 4.2 million gallons a day to be used for watering Golden Gate Park, Harding Park and other sites on the west side of The City, as well as topping off Lake Merced. The lake is used as an emergency source of water for firefighting.

City officials said using recycled water could also stave off water rationing during future droughts, since less drinking water would be used for irrigation and industrial uses. The City would not use recycled water for drinking water.

“Water is our most precious natural resource,” said Tony Winnicker, a spokesman for the SFPUC. “Using recycled water helps preserve high-quality drinking water, reduces treated wastewater flowing into the Bay and ocean and helps protect against a future drought.”

See San Francisco Examiner article