purified
In Purified: How Recycled Sewage Is Transforming Our Water, veteran environmental and water journalist Peter Annin shows that purified wastewater is the unexpected hero in America’s efforts to address water scarcity. Annin, author of the Great Lakes Water Wars, delves into the complex, sometimes controversial, water recycling movement and how it’s playing out in five water-strapped states—California, Texas, Virginia, Nevada, and Florida.
About the Book
With engaging writing and a fast-paced narrative, Annin cuts through the fearmongering and misinformation around recycled water. In Orange County, California, decades of cutting-edge technology and ambitious community outreach efforts have made the county the largest producer of drinkable recycled water in the world, producing water so clean that even PFAS are removed. Hundreds of miles away in Texas, not one but two towns frantically rushed to build direct potable water reuse plants in response to a drought so devastating that fresh water would run out in a matter of months.
And whether you live in Colorado or Florida, fresh water is running out. Draining lakes and rivers is an outdated solution that was never actually a solution. Ocean desalination is expensive, limited, and confined to the coasts. But sewage is everywhere. While wastewater treatment plants do require money and energy, the costs are minimal compared to sticking with old “solutions,” or worse, doing nothing. While there are controversies around purified sewage, the arguments are based on fear, not facts. What sensationalist media coverage doesn’t say is that NASA astronauts drink recycled water, Orange County is doing just fine, and if you live near a river, well, your water likely includes discharge from an upstream town and actually gets a lower level of treatment than at a water recycling plant.
Potable water recycling has become the hottest frontier in the race for expanded water supply options and is direly needed in the climate-change era. It also just makes sense. Water cannot be taken for granted anymore—and that includes sewage. With Purified¸ Peter Annin takes readers on a remarkable journey into the future of fresh water.
About the Author
Peter Annin
Director of the Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation
A veteran conflict and environmental journalist, Peter Annin spent more than a decade reporting on a wide variety of issues for Newsweek. For many years he specialized in coverage of domestic terrorism and other conflicts, including the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City and the Branch Davidian standoff outside Waco, Texas. He has also spent many years writing about the environment, including droughts in the Southwest, hurricanes in the Southeast, wind power on the Great Plains, and the causes and consequences of the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico.
