Water Sector News
A snapshot of clean water stories from publications around the country, updated daily!
O.C. Sanitation to demo tech that kills ‘forever chemicals,’ turning waste into water, clean energy
Feb 6, 2023
https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/story/2023-02-04/o-c-sanitation-demo-that-will-kill-forever-chemicals-turn-waste-into-water-electricity
What happens after you flush your toilet? For 2.6 million county residents, the answer to that question can be found at a 110-acre plant in Fountain Valley operated by the Orange County Sanitation District.
The industrial site, along with a similar setup in Huntington Beach, is where approximately 185 million gallons of sewage is treated in a complex process that essentially digests biologic material into its basic components.
Byproducts of that process include drinking water — about 130 million gallons per day, thanks to a groundwater replenishment system — methane gas and carbon dioxide, salt, nutrient-rich fertilizer that’s trucked off to commercial farms and a small amount of plastic, debris and grit that winds up in a landfill.