Sparkling Tap or Toilet?

Waiter: Sparkling, tap or toilet sir?

Me: I’ll have the toilet water please.

Sorry, we’re putting the cart before the horse. Let’s start at the beginning.

Chapter 1: How to flush your toilet.

93 million miles away, nuclear fusion reactions between hydrogen and helium at the sun’s core release a tremendous amount of energy in the form of solar radiation. This stream of electromagnetic waves travels through space at the speed of light, reaching earth in approximately eight minutes and twenty seconds. Much of this energy is reflected into space by clouds and snow; the rest is absorbed by the earth’s surface, providing upwards of 99% of the available energy on our planet.

Off the coast of California, lies the world’s largest and deepest ocean, the Pacific. Its vast expanse covers nearly 32% of the earth’s surface and absorbs approximately 1.57 x 10^17 joules of energy per day from the sun. For those unfamiliar with scientific notation, that would be 157 followed by fifteen zeros. It’s a big number.

For the record, this is a back of the napkin calculation I did based on the energy density of solar radiation, the surface area of the Pacific Ocean and the absorption factor of water. It’s probably close, but it’s meant to illustrate a point, not be perfectly accurate.

This energy absorption heats the surface of the water facilitating the creation of water vapor (evaporation) and beginning the hydrologic cycle.

Hang in there, this might take a minute.

This water vapor rises into the atmosphere where it cools and returns to its liquid form, creating clouds. As the clouds grow and conglomerate, weather systems begin to form. Over the Pacific, the movement of weather systems is largely controlled by a combination of east to west blowing Trade Winds and the Pacific Jet Stream.

The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a weather pattern characterized by fluctuations in the surface temperature of the tropical Pacific. These temperature changes prognosticate variations in equatorial trade winds and play a large role in the variability of California’s year-to-year rainfall patterns. During warm, wet El Nino years, the state deals with storms called atmospheric rivers which pose significant flood risk but are also crucial to building reservoir depth and snowpack in preparation for La Nina years, which are characterized by cold dry winters.

As an atmospheric river moves off the pacific and over California, the storm first drops moisture on the urbanized coastal region of California. Due to a lack of foresight in urban planning, most of this water is channeled by impervious surfaces (parking lots, roads, driveways) into storm sewers and straight back into the Pacific Ocean. It’s a problem, but not the one at issue here.

As the storm moves inland and reaches the Sierra Nevada mountains, much of its remaining moisture is deposited in the form of snow. This snow is crucial to the water supply in California since it acts as storage, slowly melting through spring and summer and providing a continuous water supply throughout the dry season.

In addition to its annual and seasonal climate variability, California is extremely geographically diverse. It’s long and tall. Kinda banana shaped. You get it. It spans 770 miles from its southern border with Mexico to its northern border with Oregon. The south of the state shares a latitude with Morocco, the north of the state has a latitude similar to the United Kingdom. Since a region’s climate is in large part controlled by its proximity to the earth’s equator/poles, the magnitude of this north south expanse means that climate not only varies year to year thanks to ENSO but that the north of the state is very different than the south. The north is temperate and wet while the south is made up of a semi-arid coastal Mediterranean climate and true desert inland.

California’s largest metropolitan region (Los Angeles) and much of southern California does not have the water supply to support its population and imports the majority of its water via the Colorado river system and the California aqueduct.

As temperatures rise in spring, the Sierra Nevada snowpack begins to melt, and water is released into rivers and streams. This meltwater flows into the nearby American, Tuolumne, Kings, and Owens rivers. Much of the water is then captured in large reservoirs such as Lake Oroville and Lake Shasta to act as water supply throughout the year. From there the water is transferred to San Joaquin River delta and eventually to the California aqueduct.

Built in the 1960s and 70’s and costing billions of taxpayer dollars over the subsequent decades, the California aqueduct is the lifeblood of southern California. It runs over 700 miles and transports water from California’s wet north to the thirsty southern half of the state.

Upon reaching the Tehachapi Mountains east of Los Angeles, the aqueduct reaches Edmonston Pumping Plant. Here the water is lifted approximately 2000 feet before it flows down into storage facilities in the Los Angeles area.

The energy required for this process is significant, about 787 megawatts of power at its peak (State Water Project, 2023). Let’s do a little math to give this number some context.

Power consumption by the City of Los Angeles = 22,000 gigawatts hours of power per year. (CA energy commission, 2024)

1 year = 365.25 days

1 day = 24 hours

1 gigawatt = 1000 megawatts

Percentage of LA’s power used by Edmondson Pumping plant during peak hours:

To be fair, the plant supplies water to more than just the city of LA proper, however, this number should be a little disturbing. During peak pumping, power equivalent to 31% of LA’s total consumption, with all of its associated greenhouse gas production, is being used just to lift the water over the Tehachapi mountains.

At this point, the entire volume of water must be purified before it is sent to our homes. I won’t bore you with the gory details of coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration, and chlorination, (possibly UV or ozonation where cryptosporidium is a risk) but just know that the process is non-trivial, energy intensive, and expensive. The water then enters the vast drinking water system where residents use it for everything from showering, to doing dishes, to flushing their toilets.

Back to me. For Christmas this year I got my wife one of those Stanley insulated cups. You know, the ‘big dumb cup’ (google the SNL skit ‘big dumb cup for’ context). They are a thing. My mom also got her one of the cups, so lucky me, I got to have one too. I love it. I drink water like a camel prepping for a marathon. One side effect of this is that I pee. A lot.

Probably 5 plus times per day I go into my bathroom, pee into that beautiful water in my toilet, and flush it down the drain; after all that work, all the natural glory and human ingenuity to get that water to my house…

I pee in it and flush it back into the ocean.

I’m not alone here.

In his seminal 1977 work, Japanese author Taro Gomi made the startling discovery that in fact, ‘Everybody Poops’. Moms, Dads, cats, dogs, elephants, everybody.

Using the transitive property of mathematics:

A = B, B=C → A=C

People who poop = everybody

People who poop = people who pee

People who pee = everybody

Thus, in following up on Gomi’s work, this paper can definitively state that everyone poops and pees. Get off your high horse. We all flush the toilet.

Having established this fundamental human truth, we can move on to the obvious next step.

Chapter 2: Mexican Red Crowned Parrots

Every morning, I walk my dog along the street outside my apartment in Los Angeles. On mornings when my coffee hasn’t had time to take effect, or I’m preoccupied with the stresses of my day, I simply wander along waiting for him to do his business (he is not immune to the proofs of chapter 1) and then head back inside. On other mornings however, the amateur naturalist in me is generally astounded by the lush oasis that is my little corner of LA’s concrete jungle. Mexican fan palms line the street from top to bottom, a twenty-foot-tall bird of paradise blooms just outside my front door, and water trickles down the sidewalk from the neighbors’ broken sprinklers. As we walk up the street, I’m forced to duck under the vibrant emerald foliage of a tropical split-leaf philodendron that would be more at home in the Brazilian Amazon than in semi-arid coastal California.

Next on my tour of allochthonous floral delights is a sixty foot tall camphor tree. I’m not sure what species exactly, but the genus is native to Southeast Asia. Even so, with a little California sun and a lot of California water, it happily flowers and fruits multiple times per year.

When the camphor tree blooms our neighborhood becomes home to another unexpected tropical transplant. The red-crowned amazon (Amazona viridigenalis) is a parrot native to Mexico. The birds are a beautiful forest green with striking bright red foreheads. As the delicate creamy yellow flowers of the camphor tree turn to small yellow fruits, a flock of these intelligent and highly social birds moves into the neighborhood. They flap around the block, squawking at people, squirrels, dogs, cats, cars, other birds, and generally anyone who will listen. For about a month the area under the tree becomes a mess of half-eaten fruit and you have to be on your toes walking through so as not to take a discarded morsel to the head. In general, the neighborhood loves them. In a city of vibrant eccentric transplants trying to find a niche, they fit right in. They are considered non-invasive, meaning that they don’t disrupt the native ecosystem, and in my opinion, if you don’t mind the mess and the noise, they’re an excellent addition.

But none of this answers the question, what the hell are they doing here? How is a tropical bird surviving and thriving in a climate so different to that of their evolutionary ancestors?

Their origin story is simple. They were popular pets in the 1960’s and 70’s, and while many urban legends tell stories of pet store fires or mass releases after aviary closures, the likely truth is that they are accidental releases and escaped pets.

How they survive is more interesting. The birds have found a niche feeding on the tropical fruits and flowers Angelinos use for landscaping (Sahagan, 2024).

Through our landscaping and irrigation, we have created an ecosystem in which a tropical bird feels right at home.

I know much of LA gets a bad rap as a concrete hellscape, and you won’t find me disagreeing, but we also need to recognize that large parts of Southern California have been transformed into semi-tropical oases in what should be a fairly dry climate; to the extent that these tropical birds are able to happily survive and thrive within Southern California’s cities, but NOT in its natural spaces. Take a hike in the San Gabriel Mountains or the Los Padres National Forest. You will see lots of beautiful flora and fauna, but you will not see any red crowned amazons.

Chapter 3: Okaaaaay…. but what’s your point?

I think we’re finally ready to get the wheels off the ground. So, let’s go back to the beginning. You remember? Me ordering toilet water at an imaginary restaurant? The point, my oh so skeptical hedonists, is that we here in SoCal have got a pretty sweet deal thanks to all this imported water. While farms in the Central Valley of California let their almond trees die due to water restrictions, we plant tropical landscaping, drink from gargantuan sippy cups, and gaze at red crowned amazons as water from our neighbor’s broken sprinkler gets our toes wet (hypothetically speaking of course). We take this water from our fellow Californians (humans, plants, and animals), LITERALLY shit on it, and, after great effort and tremendous sacrifice, we flush it into the ocean. So with this in mind:

Let’s have a little respect for that water in our toilets, stop using the term toilet to tap in the pejorative, and have a conversation to quell the delicate squeamishness that has made wastewater recycling such a difficult pill to swallow. Because I like flushing my toilet. And I like parrots. And I think you do too.

There is some good or bad news depending on where you fall on this issue. The city of Los Angeles has outlined an ambitious plan to recycle 100% of its wastewater by 2035. This will raise the portion of the city’s water supply made up of recycled water from a paltry 2% to a respectable 35% (LADWP, 2020). So, for better or worse this change is coming. All we have to do is stay out of the way.

Fortunately, nothing about the water delivered to people’s homes will change. Water standards are water standards, and wastewater is usually treated to a higher standard than water taken from surface sources like lakes and rivers. I wish there was some long winded, high-falutin’ explanation to give here, but it’s really that simple. California has what are called MCLs (Maximum Contaminant Levels) for every possible harmful pollutant that could make it into our drinking water. These account for things like taste, color, and odor. Recycled wastewater is generally so pure after treatment that it needs to have salts added back in to meet the MINIMUM requirements for chemicals like fluoride and magnesium (Hammer, 2015).

What was that? You just think it’s gross? What makes you think ‘natural’ waters are so clean?

Both surface water like lakes and rivers, and ground water have their own specific set of contaminants that must be treated before the water can be delivered.

If a bear shits in a lake, do you just drink Mountain Dew the rest of your life?

Sorry, that was a cheap shot, but if you’re generally grossed out by the idea of drinking wastewater, let’s look at the alternatives. Take river water.

River water contains:

• Microbial Pathogens: bacteria such as E. coli, viruses, and parasites such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium
• Chemical Pollutants: pesticides and herbicides from agricultural runoff, heavy metals (like mercury, lead, and arsenic) from industrial processes.
• Nutrient Pollution: nitrogen and phosphorus primarily from fertilizer and untreated sewage.
• Plastics and Microplastics: Waste and littering has introduced vast quantities of plastics into our aquatic ecosystems, where they break down into microplastics.
• Pharmaceuticals and personal care products: residues from our medications, cosmetics, and other personal care products.
• Radioactive substances: Natural sources, mining, and nuclear power plants can release radioactive materials into rivers. (Hammer, 2015)

And finally, to put the cherry on top of this thoroughly disgusting sundae, treated wastewater effluent. Yup, where do you think the wastewater from our treatment plants goes? Right back into the river, and while time in the natural environment does lead to some remediation, there is no law that says once wastewater is returned to a river it magically becomes river water. Sorry Cincinnati, you’ve been drinking Pittsburgh’s wastewater effluent the whole time anyway.

To drive this point home, we can use the example of the Trinity River which runs through Dallas on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. 200 miles south of Dallas, the river flows into lake Livingston, which supplies 86% of the drinking water to the city of Houston. All well and good until you realize that the Trinity has historically been a seasonal river. These days? It flows year-round. What constitutes the difference? You guessed it, Dallas’s treated wastewater effluent. During the most recent drought in Texas fully half of the water flowing into Lake Livingston was made up of Dallas area wastewater. Even so, wastewater treatment from Dallas area plants was so effective, that “no significant changes were observed to constituent levels” (Fehling, 2011) during the drought. The water in the river continued to meet all Federal and State standards for water quality. Keep in mind that this water had undergone only the necessary wastewater remediation to be released back into a river. This says nothing about the further treatment that would be implemented to make this water potable.

One positive of the most recent drought in the American Southwest is that it has awakened many Californians to the tenuous nature of their water supply. Residents have been forced to open their minds to new and innovative ways to provide this most precious resource. There are many adaptations to our water supply system that must be implemented as climate change increases the variability of an already variable water supply. As new technologies become available we must be flexible in our solutions. However, as El Nino years bring atmospheric rivers, reservoirs fill, and water scarcity fades, one shift that must endure is our increased appreciation for the water we have, because dry years will inevitably return.

Southern California blooms thanks to the bountiful Pacific, the majestic Sierra Nevadas, the ingenuity of generations of engineers, and the sacrifices of our neighbors. Our orange and avocado groves provide commerce, fresh squeezed juice, and toppings for our toast. Every year on her birthday I buy my grandmother an orchid from the tropical flower farm near her house. On hot August Saturdays, residents of this wealthy arid oasis lay by pools, drinking lemonade and eating watermelon. These are good things. It’s a good life for many, and the point here isn’t to make people feel bad for enjoying the fruits of their labor. The point is that we need to be grateful. We need to recognize our own stake in ensuring a durable and resilient water supply for California’s future.

What better way to show our gratitude than by ensuring that every drop of water imported into our homes is utilized to the fullest extent.

There are many ways to get this done, but if you’re adverse to potable wastewater reuse, maybe start by reframing its adoption as an expression of your gratitude; for nature, your neighbors, and for the beautiful state we call home. Take a cue from my dog; only vote for candidates who are anti-cat, take two walks a day, and support drinking from the toilet. Or not, potable wastewater reuse is necessary, so it’s coming regardless.

References:

• California Energy Commission. Electricity consumption by county, 2016. http://www.ecdms.energy.ca.gov/elecbycounty.aspx.
• Fehling, Dave. “Dallas Wastewater Keeps Trinity Flowing, Houston Drinking.” StateImpact, December 21, 2011. https://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2011/12/21/dallas-wastewater-keeps-trinity-flowing-houston-drinking/.
• Gomi, Taro. Everybody Poops. New York, NY : Kane & Miller, 1977.
• Hammer, Mark J., and Mark J. Hammer. Water and Wastewater Technology. Pearson India Education Services PVT. Ltd., 2015.
• LADWP. “Recycled Water.” Los Angeles County sanitation districts | home, 2020. https://www.lacsd.org/.
• Sahagan, Louis. “Threatened in Their Homeland, Feral Mexican Parrots Thrive on L.A.’s Exotic Landscaping.” Los Angeles Times, March 3, 2024. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-03/feral-mexican-parrots-thrive-on-exotic-l-a-landscaping.
• State Water Project. “A.D. Edmonston Pumping Plant.” Water Education Foundation, 2023. https://www.watereducation.org/aquapedia/ad-edmonston-pumping-plant.