July 4, 2002

 Mr. Mark S
Consulting Engineer

Dear Mr. S:

            Referring to your article of June 24 in North Bay Business Journal, may I respectfully suggest that the premise of your conclusions that treating human sewage to provide additional water supplies requires further consideration.  Reference is made to your statement, “Recycled water will play a big role in easing the strains of population growth on water related infrastructure as it offsets increases in potable water demand.”

             The background of water resource management, of which this issue is only a part, is included on the web site, http://Californiawatercrisis.org.  Should you find it appropriate to refer to that material, those other issues relevant to this subject may be considered as well.

             Succinctly, you suggest that, “Research shows that recycled water can be used safely for many agricultural and industrial applications.”

 While it is true that human waste may be appropriate to particular agricultural production as it has for centuries, human errors, residues of disinfecting agents,  mechanical and power failures, misconnection to alternate delivery systems, mutating pathogens, and the MTBEs of the chemical world and other contaminants of our present society cannot be shown to be absolutely excluded from human wastes by any treatment process currently available.  To the extent treatment in the present state of the art may be partially successful, any process and storage is extremely expensive and those costs must be borne by the public that is compelled to treat sewage, while alternatives are at hand that eliminate that unnecessary burden and obvious health risk.

 Briefly, 85% of present managed water in California has been sequestered by agriculture.  It is interesting to note that this 85% monopoly in source is provided to agriculture which, in 1998, contributed only 1.9% to the Gross State Product.  No security whatsoever is provided for domestic requirements.  Witness the complete exhaustion of reservoirs in the 1976-1977 droughts to serve contract requirements of the water export projects without any consideration whatsoever to reserve flows to accommodate domestic or environmental requirements.

             Of the remaining 15% of total available supply, all other industries are able to secure, only 30% of that 15%, and human domestic needs are limited to securing 9%.

 A simple example may exhibit the realities of present water distribution, the correction of which offers a far more appropriate resolution of domestic potable water shortfall.

 If the amount of one million gallons of available water is being considered, 85% (or 850,000 gallons) will be secured by the monopoly of agriculture.  Of the remaining 15%, approximately 30% of that 15% (45,000 gallons) is secured by other industry; and 9% of the 15% (13,500 gallons) is relegated to domestic needs for potable water.  Thus, compared to the 850,000 gallons sequestered by agriculture, human needs obtained only 13,500 gallons.  A paradox, when both constitutionally and legislatively domestic uses are first required to be provided for in their requirements.  Particularly, by the same authority, the highest quality water is to be made available first to domestic uses as the highest and most beneficial use of the resource.

 In absolute derogation of those fundamental requirements, in addition to securing a monopoly of 85% of available water, the highest quality water in the world, the headwaters of the San Joaquin River, are diverted to production of cotton and alfalfa, while the proposal is offered that shortfall in domestic requirements resort is to be made to sewage reclamation.

 The final irony being that if crops grown by the highest quality water were to be farmed using treated sewage—which you pointed out has been proved appropriate—and the pristine waters now provided to agriculture were to be delivered to domestic potable water requirements, the domestic shortfall problems referred to in the article will be resolved.  Agriculture needs to reduce consumption by only 1.6% of the 85% monopoly, and the high quality water now available to domestic drinking water would be doubled and the potential enormous costs of treatment and storage and risks of treating sewage would be avoided.   By reducing the 85% monopoly of water held by agriculture in California by only 1.6%, the domestic water supply could be increased 100% and securing water from sewage would not be required.

                                                            Sincerely,

                                                             Senator John A. Nejedly, Ret