Recipient Organization
NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIV
(N/A)
RALEIGH,NC 27695
Performing Department
Soil Science
Non Technical Summary
Water is a globally scarce natural resource. Water crises are projected to become progressively worse as a result of climate change induced drought, population growth, expedited urbanization, changes in human life styles, industrial development etc. Highly treated, energy intensive and high cost drinking water is currently used throughout the U.S. for many purposes including drinking water, food preparation, washing and bathing, toilet flushing, laundry, irrigation, water-cooling towers, etc. But each of us only actually drinks a couple quarts of water each day. Potable water is that water considered satisfactory for domestic human consumption. Does the water we flush our toilets with and irrigate our lawns with really need to be treated to high-level drinking water standards Or can non-potable waters work just as well and just as safely for some of these uses This is particularly an important question as ohigh-endo drinking water becomes more and more scarce, as is expected to occur as global climate change occurs. So, we need to ask ourselves if there are other options that would allow use of clean, but non-potable water for certain uses in homes, businesses, and communities. Treating and reusing water for provision of non-potable water supply can be an excellent strategy to overcome the life threatening water scarcity situation many communities need to deal with today and that more communities will face tomorrow. Some drought-affected areas of the United States are already practicing water reuse using decentralized systems. For example, this is a common practice in coastal areas of the country like northeastern North Carolina, one of the areas that we identified to conduct this study. Decentralized water reuse projects are complex and require multidisciplinary knowledge and prudent decision-making regarding public health, environmental impact, economic and financial concerns, social and legal aspects, design and planning. Principal water quality factors that determine the suitability of water reuse are pathogens and chemicals, including nutrients, trace elements, salinity and sodicity (levels of sodium in irrigation water). Some ecological and public health concerns are related to endocrine disruptors; pharmaceuticals and personal care products in reused water are also of major concern as they have been linked to drinking water. But, the major public health concerns for non-potable reuse situations assessed here are related primarily to pathogens and chemical exposures. Our goal is to study the potential values and public health impacts of Integrated Water Technologies (IWT) of which Decentralized Water Reclamation (DWR) systems are one type. DWR technology can provide non-potable water reuse opportunities and one of our overarching goals is to develop strategies for the design, management, and use of DWR technology for water reuse in ways that minimize or eliminate potential negative health effects.
Animal Health Component
80%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
10%
Applied
80%
Developmental
10%
Goals / Objectives
Objective 1. To develop integrated water technology designs and assess their impacts on water quality by (1) developing Integrated Water Technology (IWT) concepts, identifying appropriate on-site wastewater and stormwater treatment technologies, (2) determining how these technologies interact together and affect water quality and quantity in a community when considered holistically and(3)developing a GIS-based tool to assess potential water quality impacts on small watersheds. The integrated water designs will be developed to coordinate the sometimes conflicting water management strategies for various needs such as (1) decentralized wastewater treatment systems, (2) stormwater treatment and removal, (3) flood control, (4) sediment and erosion control and (5) water table management to enhance agricultural production. Hence, IWT designs will be assessed for their ability to mitigate water contamination from a broad range of non-point sources of environmental degradation and pollution. Objective 2: This objective focuses upon development, assessment and use of Decentralized Water Reclamation (DWR) systems for local non-potable water supplies and specifically assessing the values and potential public health impacts of this DWR technology approach. Initial seed funding for Objective 2 is from a CDC Climate Change study via the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA). This includes primary collaborative relationships with CDC researchers working jointly on this project and use of the CDC lab facilities in Atlanta.
Project Methods
For Objective 1: A demonstration community (e.g. a subdivision) will be selected in the mainland area of the Pasquotank River watershed for installation of the integrated water design technologies. Following design of the monitoring network for water quality monitoring, two parts of the demonstration community will be instrumented. One part will eventually have the integrated designs installed in it and a second control area will be left intact. Monitoring networks will consist of nests of multi-level pieziometers and continuous water table recorders (Buetow, 2002 and Humphries, 2002), surface water flow gauges and water sampling devices. Analytical results of water quality samples from these devices will be used to establish baseline surface water and ground water conditions in the demonstration community. Once baseline data are collected, the effects of the integrated designs effects will be assessed. For Objective 2: Health risks associated with exposure to different decentralized water reuses will be characterized through risk assessment and management. Chemical and microbial risk assessment, environmental risk assessment, risk management and risk communication components will be considered. The CDC collaborators will lead the risk assessment aspects of this work. Recycled water quality data from DWR systems with a focus upon chemical contaminants, pathogens and indicator organisms will be obtained from multiple study sites located throughout North Carolina and the United States. Chemicals and microbial pathogens present in the recycled water will be studied using standard methods suggested by the US EPA and by Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater or via using specialized techniques (dead-end hollow member ultrafiltration technique for pathogens and microbial indicators) developed by the CDC in Atlanta. Statistical analyses of the results will be conducted primarily using statistical packages available to the research team through the SAS Institute (SAS, 2009). A minimum of eight DWR decentralized wastewater reuse systems across the country will be studied with four of the study sites located in North Carolina. Project sites are located from North Carolina to New York and from to Texas and California. They range from large-scale community cluster wastewater treatment systems and medium-scale on-site systems to small-scale, school, business and single-family residential scales. The DWR project sites (Table 1) are to be identified in research reports by site Ids and generic names (not actual facility names unless actual names are requested to be used by the facility owner). Microbial analyses are to be conducted at the Waterborne Disease Prevention Branch's Laboratory of the newly proposed CDC's National Center for Emerging Zoonotic and Infectious Diseases (NCEZID). Five samples collected from each study site during each sampling event Microbiological analyses include numerous indicator organisms: (a) total coliforms, (b) E. coli, (c) Enterococci, (d) C. perfringens spores, (e) F+ phage and (f) Somatic phage.