Water Reuse in the East

Volume 6 Issue 4 April 2019

Water Reuse in the East

By Kris Polly

SECRETARY BEN GRUMBLES: ADVANCING ONE WATER MANAGEMENT IN MARYLAND

Out West, everyone knows about water reuse and recycling. Across Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and other arid states, municipalities have implemented schemes to purify and reuse wastewater to provide water for industrial, commercial, and environmental uses—and even for use as drinking water. However, water recycling is just as appropriate on the East Coast. In this issue of Municipal Water Leader, we highlight several installations in the East, as well as a few technologies and public outreach strategies that have the potential to promote water reuse even more.

In our cover story, we talk to Ben Grumbles, Maryland’s secretary of the environment. Under Secretary Grumbles leadership, Maryland is embedding the principle of integrated water management into statewide policy to enable growth while reducing pollution in the Chesapeake Bay. We then travel farther south on the Chesapeake to the Hampton Roads Sanitation District in southeastern Virginia. The district’s ambitious coastal aquifer recharge program will put 100 million gallons a day of drinkingquality water into the local aquifer by 2030, thus reducing pollution, replenishing groundwater, and reducing ground subsidence. In West Monroe, Louisiana, meanwhile, the Sparta Reuse Facility is providing 5 million gallons of treated water a day to a local paper mill, reducing the mill’s groundwater needs and preserving the local aquifer from depletion and saltwater intrusion.

Water reuse is safe and beneficial, but it sometimes worries consumers. To address those fears, Oregon's Clean

Water Services started the Pure Water Brew contest, in which brewers compete to turn purified water into best-inshow beer.

Chemigation is another technology that is better known in the arid West than in the East, but as Agri-Inject chief executive officer Erik Tribelhorn tells us, it is highly suitable for states like Maryland that are seeking to reduce chemical runoff.

In this magazine, we also check in with Dean Amhaus, president of The Water Council, about the upcoming Water Leaders Summit, and we speak with Pablo Arroyave of ICF about how his company helps clients comply with the alphabet soup of regulations that any major project faces.

Across the country, innovative technologies and farsighted policymakers are safeguarding water supplies and fighting against environmental degradation at the same time. Using water wisely is not something that only western users need to worry about—it is universal. The water reuse accomplishments of East Coast managers are impressive, and we are proud to feature them in this issue of Municipal Water Leader.

Kris Polly is editor-in-chief of Municipal Water Leader magazine and president of Water Strategies LLC, a government relations firm he began in February 2009 for the purpose of representing and guiding water, power, and agricultural entities in their dealings with Congress, the Bureau of Reclamation, and other federal government agencies. He may be contacted at kris.polly@waterstrategies.com.