BRINGING CERTAINTY IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD: WATER REUSE AND ALTERNATIVE WATER SUPPLY DEVELOPMENT

Building on the company’s long history of delivering award winning legacy facilities that serve the communities we live in, driving water security and resilience is our mission.

By Dr. Zeynep Erdal, Director of Integrated Solutions and Capabilities, Black & Veatch

Now that the majority of U.S. water utilities are keenly aware of the importance of water supply resiliency, water reuse is taking a central role in helping public and private utilities achieve such resilience. It is also driving collaboration and innovation in other aspects of water reclamation and resource recovery. Mirroring this recognition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Water Reuse Action Plan effort has moved into its next phase: providing a national platform and roadmap for water reuse.

There are situations where reuse was perceived to be difficult to implement due to lack of clarity for how to future-proof systems against future regulatory frameworks (Black & Veatch, Water Industry Report 2021). In the face of regulatory absence or ambiguity, advanced technology solutions can be a key enabler where drivers that create water stress and reuse opportunities intersect. These drivers include climate change and resiliency, nutrients and watershed issues, drought and supply reliability, and water quality issues across the globe.

In fact, communities have practiced reuse since the 1970s, when agencies in Florida and California began to use recycling water as a seawater intrusion barrier to protect groundwater resources. For many utilities throughout the U.S. and especially in arid regions, risk mitigation, resiliency, or water scarcity have been a primary driver for water reuse. The cyclic nature of water availability brought reuse to the forefront more recently. Extended droughts in Texas and California especially have underscored the need to extend water supplies during time of water scarcity.

Utilities also are recognizing the reduction or elimination of effluent disposal as an increasingly important reuse driver. Recent trends in used water and nutrient management have shifted the water sector’s focus toward solutions that lead to resource recovery schemes.

In other words, water demand is increasing with population in existing metropolitan areas. Communities are experiencing more demand for recycled water due to continued droughts and supply shortages. With the centralized approach, infrastructure carries “the problem away” from communities instead of keeping recovery and distributed management of embedded resources such as nutrients, energy, and water close to the demand centers. To address these and other issues, more communities are likely to develop water master plans that incorporate One Water philosophies and more widely distributed supporting infrastructure.

Non-potable water reuse is commonly used as a methodical, fit-for-purpose approach to treatment today. It is already decreasing pressure on potable water supplies by fulfilling