BC Environmental and Occupational Health Research Network

Water reuse practitioners around the world need and want a set of universal standards or criteria on which they can rely when designing a water reuse facility/project. There are currently no national standards in the U.S. Individual state regulations govern the design of various reuse facilities, although not all states have adopted standards. For states with standards, they do not necessarily cover all types of reuse applications. The level of stringency of state standards varies from state to state. The goal of this project is to develop a "white paper" which would assess the rationale and alternatives for developing criteria or standards. The "white paper" is intended to explore alternatives ranging from national regulations to voluntary consensus industry standards, water reuse criteria, or guidelines.

The overall goal of this study is to more accurately characterize the value of changes in water supply reliability to residential and recreational (parks, playgrounds, and schools) users through the application of relevant economic valuation techniques, relying on advanced statistical analysis of residential stated preference data collected via state-of-the-art survey methods.

Maintaining high quality recycled water at the point of use is imperative to successful recycled water programs and the future growth of recycled water programs. This research would provide understanding of water quality degradation in recycled water storage and distribution systems and recommend storage, treatment, and distribution system operations changes that would maintain high quality recycled water at point of use. The study will directly benefit utilities by providing information that will allow them to cost-effectively modify processes to minimize complaints of microbial regrowth (bacterial and algae), odor, and color. The study will also examine how utilities can reduce operational challenges, reduce public health risks, and build public trust. In addition, it will also produce an end product that can assist other utilities in maintaining recycled water quality through distribution systems.