Welcome to the Oregon Sustainability Center.

I'm sure Portland will be first in line to do this - it is expensive, trendy, and "sustainable".

After all, it's not like it rains in Western Oregon or anything...

So? Are you folks thinking the water that falls out of the sky is new?

If San Diego and Singapore are the ones leading the charge, we've got a 50-50 chance that Sam and Randy will jump on it. However, if Seattle, San Francisco, or any place in Northern/Western Europe gives it a try, we'll be next in line!

If I trusted them to clean it right I wouldn't mind. But I don't. It'll be done in a very expensive yet half assed way and then the numbers will be fudged to make it all seem okay.

The bigger hurdle to public acceptance may be psychological. Carol Nemeroff, a psychologist at the University of Southern Maine, said the notion of treated sewage “hooks into the intuitive concept of contagion” and contamination. To overcome this, she said, a city must “unhook the current water from its history.”

Is that why PWB is doing what they are?

Unhook from history... Great idea!

This is fine for industry but not for people. Let us start there and we will see. Until there is a 100% fool proof way to ensure that contaminants stay out then forget it. The inept people behind the government can not be trusted with our well being, no way. Do you trust the Randy Leonard types with your drinking water? Will they change the filters on a regular basis or skimp to pocket the money? What other short cuts will they take. What happens when the rain overtakes the system? What about extended power outages?
We know that chemicals flushed and tossed down the toilette end up in the water so does this filtration remove chemicals also?

Too late, check on how many pharmaceuticals are already in the drinking water.

I doubt that filters/filtering can take out every chemical and every pharmaceutical. There are thousands of chemicals right now that have not even been regulated yet by EPA, not even assessed. I would think that should be Step 1 BEFORE even thinking of furthering this industry...but hey it is a money making venture for companies and jobs, right?
...and isn't it creative what we can achieve with toilet water, pat on back.
So just drink it then and don't ask for in depth answers here!
Money and jobs are at stake, and if we should all get sicker, great there too for the health industry, and selling still more drugs for the sickness. This in no way is about people's health follow the money trail!!

My opinion: The people promoting this crap are the sick ones!

If there are experts who claim that filters take out every chemical and pharmaceutical, step up and prove it.

You think water they pull out of the Willamette, treat and send to your house is any better? Lets face it, if you live downstream from someone and drinking water is pulled from that river you've already been drinking someone elses waste. Only those living at the headwaters are not but they are still drinking waste from fish, deer, elk, birds, etc.

Don't know where you live, but we in pdx are not drinking water out of the Willamette.

Another stupid idea put in use by California; just another reason to NOT live OR visit there. The only problem is that the 'progressives' in Oregon don't want to look like a stick in the muck (har har), so despite all our rain, we'll be lining up to increase water rates so that we too can drink our own wastes. Oregon, the me too state.

Hmmm. Requiring a 100% certainty that contaminants will stay out of the water?

We don't have that now, with either the Bull Run stuff, and certainly not the well field over in far NE along the Columbia.

Why the demand for a higher standard?

Its psychological, the "yuck" factor.

If you want 100% guaranteed purity, better start distilling your own. The power costs are going to be a bear, though.

"Do you want estrogen with that?"

"Yeah, sure, but can you put the radiological and chemotherapy excretions on the top, please?"

H-POO-0

Great book, "The Big Thirst", just finishing it today, so this article is timely. Places like San Diego have almost no choice but to pursue these options, plus desalination. Expensive, but better than dry taps.

Everybody who's been to Las Vegas has drank recycled water - they clean it and pump it right back in their reservoir (where it mixes with fresh water first, but how's that really any different? Plus, people boat and swim in their drinking water).

Anybody who has swam in an Oregon lake or the Willamette river has come in contact with far worse.

Luckily we don't need this here, now or in the foreseeable future. That said, recycling water for use in toilets and irrigation makes a lot of sense even for us, technically a dry state (defined as anywhere where it doesn't rain during the growing season).

I toured a water reclamation plant back in the 70's where I'm from.

It was amazing what they started with, and what ended up in the glass at the end of the process.

This was before the advent of the medicated society we live in, so I don't know what else would be in the water today, and it was put in place by a somewhat less dubious government than the planner/government kleptocracy we enjoy. But I'm not too fired up about this.

I will say that there had better be real science involved, not some sweetheart development deal. The regional power brokers tend to jettison science and facts if they interfere with the planner/government (wet) dream.

Why the demand for a higher standard?

Higher than what? I saw no spec attached, Clinamen wants all the contaminants addressed.

So lets restate this in engineering terms. I want a complete list of all significant contaminants and any EPA/FDA tolerances for each. Then I want to see what the results are after treatment of the water from the polluted source with a comparison with Bull Run at it's optimum.

And that's for openers.

"So lets restate this in engineering terms. I want a complete list of all significant contaminants and any EPA/FDA tolerances for each."

Hey - this is Portland, we don't use "engineering terms" - we rely on feelings and our "inner child".

This is a city that drained an entire reservoir because one person peed in it. Think anyone behind that decision actually did the calculation of how much you contaminate 7.8 million gallons of water with one bladder-full of urine?

Making rational decisions is not part of the Portland Idea!

Well obviously you need to start with a small sample size and test for a reasonable period to ensure quality and safety.

I can think of no better group than the politicians, engineers, contractors, and financial executives that put this deal together.

Let's say 10 years of drinking deja poo would be a good sample period. Then we do a complete analysis, which in some extreme cases might involve organ removal.

Does this group who want this have money to think they can buy their way out of having to drink this?

...or is it whatever they can make money on for the moment, no thoughts whatsoever about down the road because they have a position to maintain for a lifestyle they have to continue right now for their families?

...or is it that they simply have no conscience whether their grandchildren drink pharmaceuticals .....and/or they just depend on that future technologies or health industries will be able to fix any problems?