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Beer tasting at Pure Water Brew 2016.
TURNING REUSE WATER INTO BEER: PURE WATER BREW
W
ater reuse is a reliable and drought-resistant source of water for irrigation, in-stream flow augmentation, industrial uses, or even human consumption. However, whenever recycled water is used for food preparation or for drinking water supplies, consumers tend to get squeamish. They think more about the water’s past as wastewater than about its current level of purity. To address this issue, Clean Water Services, a public utility based outside Portland, Oregon, began to supply water to some of the most demanding water users they could find: craft brewers. In the Pure Water Brew competition, craft brewers vie to turn Clean Water Services’ recycled water into beer of the highest quality—both in purity and taste. In this interview, Mark Jockers, government and public affairs director of Clean Water Services, speaks with Irrigation Leader Managing Editor Joshua Dill about the genesis of the Pure Water Brew competition and how it has shifted public perceptions of water reuse. Joshua Dill: Please tell us about your background and how you came to be in your current position.
22 | MUNICIPAL WATER LEADER
Mark Jockers: We provide services to about 600,000 people in 12 cities in the urban unincorporated portion of Washington County, Oregon. Our service district covers about 115 square miles. We operate four wastewater treatment plants, including two advanced tertiary treatment plants. We clean about 70 million gallons of water a day before returning it to the Tualatin River. We manage stormwater in collaboration with our partner cities and manage flow in the Tualatin River itself. We own about a quarter of the stored water in this basin. We use that to augment flows in the river for water quality and fish habitat. We also work on regional water supply and security planning. Joshua Dill: Tell us about how you came up with the Pure Water Brew competition. Mark Jockers: Clean Water Services is currently the largest reuse provider in the state of Oregon, which is not saying a lot. Reuse is not as developed in Oregon as it is, for instance, in the Southwest. We provide more than 100 million gallons of reuse water annually, primarily to urban irrigators like golf courses, parks, and athletic fields. Around 2014, we were thinking about strategies for expanding our reuse program. We were meeting with our board-appointed advisory commission, and one of our committee members, Art Larrance, said, “If you really want to talk about water,
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CLEAN WATER SERVICES.
Mark Jockers: I am the government and public affairs director with Clean Water Services, a public utility in suburban Portland, Oregon. My background is actually in journalism. I have been working in the communication field for more than 30 years, 28 of them here at Clean Water Services, where I manage the district’s state and federal legislative agendas, as well as our communications, public involvement, research, outreach, and education programs.
Joshua Dill: How large is your service area and how many people does it serve?
