In Spotlight: Water
An estimated 844 million people around the world do not have access to safe water. That translates to 1 in 9 people globally who endure this struggle on a daily basis. The task of water collection is often a chore taken up by women and young girls who spend a significant part of their day doing just that. Lack of access to safe water is a reality for many, in developing nations. As we continue to find solutions to address this basic human need, we are now faced with a new crisis: water scarcity.
"Women and girls spend up to 6 hours a day collecting water."
- water.org
- water.org
Cape Town, South Africa, a city of nearly 4 million residents, became the first city to encounter this new threat. Extended drought as a result of climate change, population growth, and invasive plant species have all strained the water capacity of the city. Following close behind and expected to face water scarcity in the coming years are these 11 cities - São Paulo, Bangalore, Beijing, Cairo, Jakarta, Moscow, Istanbul, Mexico City, London, Tokyo, and Miami (BBC, Feb 2018). It is clear that this threat does not discriminate between a developing nation, or a developed nation. This is the new reality we will all experience at some level in our lifetime.
The Nature Conservancy estimated that close to 10 billion gallons of water are consumed annually by invasive plant species such as the Australian acacia and eucalyptus pines found around Cape Town, South Africa.
Understandably the aforementioned crises are of huge concern to all of humanity. However, another threat that has been compounding for decades is water pollution. Pollutants such as single-use plastics and chemical run-off from homes and farms directly impact the health and safety of our wildlife. On a regional and global scale these pollutants impact people’s livelihoods and the world economy.
“Almost 18 billion pounds of plastic ends up in our oceans every year. And that is just the tip of the iceberg"
-National Geographic
-National Geographic
Water is a vast topic with a myriad of concerns. While all water-related issues are important, this edition will focus on three main themes - access to safe water, water scarcity and water pollution. We will use these three global concerns as the backdrop as we discuss our daily water usage habits. I hope it will allow us to reflect and evaluate if we are contributing to these global issues or helping mitigate them. Included in this edition are suggestions and ideas for everyone to implement right at home. I hope we can all engage and participate in promoting a global change for water crisis.
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Joining me to discuss water quality, conservation, and purification are two water management professionals: Jennifer McLaurin and Amy Warnock. Both work for Fulton County Public Works Department in Georgia. Jennifer is the Water Quality Manager for the Public Education and Outreach Program and Amy is the Water Conservation Manager. I toured the Johns Creek Environmental Campus with Cheryl McClellan to see first hand the process of cleaning wastewater. Cheryl is the Program Manager for this state-of-the-art wastewater managment facility. I would like to thank each of them for their time and for sharing their insights on water quality, conservation, and purification. And most importantly, I want to recognize their hard work in ensuring that the residents of Fulton County have access to safe drinking water and for keeping our waterways clean.
The interview has been divided into five segments:
There are two additional segments at the end of the interview.
The interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. |
Jennifer McLaurin and Amy Warnock
Educators and Water Management Professionals
Ayesha Siraj
Interviewer
Educators and Water Management Professionals
Ayesha Siraj
Interviewer
Introduction
Ayesha: Of the many stories that news outlets have covered on water this year, the ones that have stayed with me are the ongoing concerns with lack of access to safe water for the impoverished; the water shortage in Cape Town, South Africa; and how plastic, a pollutant in the ocean, is adversely impacting marine life. All these issues tie into what both of you do in your respective careers in water management. I really appreciate you joining me for this discussion. Welcome and thank you for your time!
Jennifer: You are welcome!
Amy: You are welcome!
Ayesha: I would like to start by understanding what both of you do in your respective professions in water management.
Amy: We are both Environmental Educators and Environmental Quality Managers. That is our official title. I focus more on water conservation, and Jennifer focuses more on water quality issues. We develop programs; we schedule and teach programs for all age groups (pre-K through college) and for all audiences.
We also hold presentations for community groups, civic organizations, senior centers, libraries and homeowners associations. Just about anybody who would let us come out and talk about water. Through these programs we try to get the word out about how people can help us to conserve water, to keep the water clean, and to help run our water systems efficiently and effectively.
We do workshops as well. For example, in the rain barrel workshops we teach people how to make a rain barrel and in the conservation 101 workshop we give everyone a conservation kit, which includes different faucet aerators, shower heads, hose, and nozzle. We go over the how and the why of water conservation for Fulton County specifically and for our region.
Ayesha: It sounds like you focus on the education aspect of water quality and conservation?
Amy: Yes, we do public education and outreach.
Jennifer: We, also, provide support for our Technical Services Division. What that means is when we are installing new lines, or repairing lines we support them by coordinating public meetings and public notices. We provide educational brochures to let people know that we're going to be in the area working. In addition to that, we coordinate with various state agencies and with the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (MNGWPD). The MNGWPD, staffed by the Atlanta Regional Commission, was created in 2001 and includes 15 counties and 95 cities. The Atlanta region is the only major metropolitan area in the country with more than 100 jurisdictions implementing a long-term comprehensive water management program that is required and enforced.
Ayesha: Does your department always get involved when water and sewer lines are being installed for new development within Fulton County?
Jennifer: Yes. If we are putting in a water line we talk to different cities within Fulton County, and with Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and their planning committees, so we are all aligned. We do not want to be wasting time and money putting a line where something else has been planned. All this requires a lot of coordination and we help with that. We are a revenue-generating department so we have to make sure that we are using our customers’ money wisely.
Ayesha: Before we start talking about issues pertaining to water, I think it would be helpful to talk briefly about the amount of fresh water that is accessible to humans. Do you consider water to be a finite or infinite resource?
Amy: It's fairly complex when you start really digging into it. The US Geological Survey has a really good graph that shows it. But the very basic is 97% of the water on earth is saltwater which is not completely unusable, but desalinization is very expensive. So for all intents and purposes, that water is not drinkable unless we don't have another source.
2% of our water is locked in ice caps and glaciers and that leaves us with 1%. Of that 1% a lot of it is groundwater, some of which is accessible and some of it isn't, and some of it is also ground ice like permafrost. Permafrost is not accessible. So surface water is where most of earth’s drinking water comes from rivers and lakes. That accounts for far less than 1%. That is in the thousandths of a percent.
Jennifer: You are welcome!
Amy: You are welcome!
Ayesha: I would like to start by understanding what both of you do in your respective professions in water management.
Amy: We are both Environmental Educators and Environmental Quality Managers. That is our official title. I focus more on water conservation, and Jennifer focuses more on water quality issues. We develop programs; we schedule and teach programs for all age groups (pre-K through college) and for all audiences.
We also hold presentations for community groups, civic organizations, senior centers, libraries and homeowners associations. Just about anybody who would let us come out and talk about water. Through these programs we try to get the word out about how people can help us to conserve water, to keep the water clean, and to help run our water systems efficiently and effectively.
We do workshops as well. For example, in the rain barrel workshops we teach people how to make a rain barrel and in the conservation 101 workshop we give everyone a conservation kit, which includes different faucet aerators, shower heads, hose, and nozzle. We go over the how and the why of water conservation for Fulton County specifically and for our region.
Ayesha: It sounds like you focus on the education aspect of water quality and conservation?
Amy: Yes, we do public education and outreach.
Jennifer: We, also, provide support for our Technical Services Division. What that means is when we are installing new lines, or repairing lines we support them by coordinating public meetings and public notices. We provide educational brochures to let people know that we're going to be in the area working. In addition to that, we coordinate with various state agencies and with the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (MNGWPD). The MNGWPD, staffed by the Atlanta Regional Commission, was created in 2001 and includes 15 counties and 95 cities. The Atlanta region is the only major metropolitan area in the country with more than 100 jurisdictions implementing a long-term comprehensive water management program that is required and enforced.
Ayesha: Does your department always get involved when water and sewer lines are being installed for new development within Fulton County?
Jennifer: Yes. If we are putting in a water line we talk to different cities within Fulton County, and with Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and their planning committees, so we are all aligned. We do not want to be wasting time and money putting a line where something else has been planned. All this requires a lot of coordination and we help with that. We are a revenue-generating department so we have to make sure that we are using our customers’ money wisely.
Ayesha: Before we start talking about issues pertaining to water, I think it would be helpful to talk briefly about the amount of fresh water that is accessible to humans. Do you consider water to be a finite or infinite resource?
Amy: It's fairly complex when you start really digging into it. The US Geological Survey has a really good graph that shows it. But the very basic is 97% of the water on earth is saltwater which is not completely unusable, but desalinization is very expensive. So for all intents and purposes, that water is not drinkable unless we don't have another source.
2% of our water is locked in ice caps and glaciers and that leaves us with 1%. Of that 1% a lot of it is groundwater, some of which is accessible and some of it isn't, and some of it is also ground ice like permafrost. Permafrost is not accessible. So surface water is where most of earth’s drinking water comes from rivers and lakes. That accounts for far less than 1%. That is in the thousandths of a percent.
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And what I always compare that to when I talk to people is that the amount of water that we have is not changing, but the amount of usable freshwater can actually be reduced. Because when a water source gets degraded to the point that they can't be treated or made safe that is water that you can no longer use. When we start pumping water from aquifers faster than it can be recharged, we are depleting that water source to the point that it can no longer be used in the future. At the same time our population is continuing to grow very rapidly. We're adding a lot of people to the planet, and the amount of usable water that we have is not only not growing but in some cases it's shrinking.
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"In just 14 years, the United Nations estimates the world will only have 60 percent of the water resources it needs if we do nothing different." - Naeem Qureshi, Opflow |
County infrastructure for water distribution and sewer collection.
Ayesha: Now that we understand the amount of water accessible to us, can you give us an overview of the infrastructure that the Fulton County has in place to make water available in our homes? The lifecycle of the water, so to speak.
Amy: The water comes from the Chattahoochee River; that's our source. It's treated at the Tom Lowe Atlanta Fulton County Water Treatment Plant which is jointly owned by Fulton County and City of Atlanta. After the water comes into the treatment plant, it goes through several steps. We add something to the water to coagulate sediment, we allow that sediment to settle down, the water then runs through a filter. We are required by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to add certain chemicals; for example., we add fluoride to the water for public health and chlorine to disinfect it. After all the sediment and the organic matter is removed and it's disinfected then it's “finished water”. That water leaves the plant through distribution systems through pipes to people’s homes. And after it is used it goes out of the drain and then it becomes “waste water”. Then it goes into the collection system, also known as the sewer system.
Just to clarify, these are two separate systems. The distribution system is the one that brings water to your home and the collection system is the one that is taking away waste water from your home. Once it leaves your home, it goes to a wastewater plant. There we can remove all of the stuff and it goes through different kinds of treatments, primary and mechanical treatment, where it basically gets screened to get large items out. Then it goes through a biological treatment where good bacteria and other beneficial microorganisms break-down waste. Then it goes through some additional treatment. The type of additional treatment depends on the plant. And once it leaves the plant, it goes back into the river or tributary from where it came from.
Jennifer: The water that we send back to the river is cleaner than when we picked it up. We have to be good stewards because the water we are letting out is being picked up by someone else downstream.
Ayesha: While clean water can be distributed through one pipe, I am wondering if the collection system has two pipes- one for waste from toilets and the other for grey water from showers, sinks, etc?
Jennifer: No, it's one sewer pipe. Basically water coming from sinks, showers, and toilets all gets collected into one pipe and is sent to the waste water treatment plant for purification. These sewer pipes run for hundreds of miles. So part of the education messaging we focus on is what you should and should not put down your drain because it is in a way a living system.
Ayesha: You mentioned hundreds of miles of pipes. Can you give us a sense of how many miles of pipe we are talking about for Fulton County?
Amy: The distribution lines which carries clean water are over 1,200 miles and collection lines which carry waste water are over 2,000 miles.
Ayesha: These numbers are only for Fulton County and Fulton County is 1 of 159 counties in Georgia?
Jennifer: Yes, these numbers apply only to Fulton County. We service around 75,000 residential drinking water customers in north Fulton and around 86,500 residential sewer customers in north and south Fulton, as well as commercial and industrial customers.
Ayesha: What about rain water that is directed from the impermeable surfaces into the storm drains. Is that connected to the sewer lines?
Amy: The storm drain is a completely different pipeline than the sewer line. For most places that's true, but there are a few municipalities in the country that have that as a combined system, but most places have them separated.
Amy: The water comes from the Chattahoochee River; that's our source. It's treated at the Tom Lowe Atlanta Fulton County Water Treatment Plant which is jointly owned by Fulton County and City of Atlanta. After the water comes into the treatment plant, it goes through several steps. We add something to the water to coagulate sediment, we allow that sediment to settle down, the water then runs through a filter. We are required by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division to add certain chemicals; for example., we add fluoride to the water for public health and chlorine to disinfect it. After all the sediment and the organic matter is removed and it's disinfected then it's “finished water”. That water leaves the plant through distribution systems through pipes to people’s homes. And after it is used it goes out of the drain and then it becomes “waste water”. Then it goes into the collection system, also known as the sewer system.
Just to clarify, these are two separate systems. The distribution system is the one that brings water to your home and the collection system is the one that is taking away waste water from your home. Once it leaves your home, it goes to a wastewater plant. There we can remove all of the stuff and it goes through different kinds of treatments, primary and mechanical treatment, where it basically gets screened to get large items out. Then it goes through a biological treatment where good bacteria and other beneficial microorganisms break-down waste. Then it goes through some additional treatment. The type of additional treatment depends on the plant. And once it leaves the plant, it goes back into the river or tributary from where it came from.
Jennifer: The water that we send back to the river is cleaner than when we picked it up. We have to be good stewards because the water we are letting out is being picked up by someone else downstream.
Ayesha: While clean water can be distributed through one pipe, I am wondering if the collection system has two pipes- one for waste from toilets and the other for grey water from showers, sinks, etc?
Jennifer: No, it's one sewer pipe. Basically water coming from sinks, showers, and toilets all gets collected into one pipe and is sent to the waste water treatment plant for purification. These sewer pipes run for hundreds of miles. So part of the education messaging we focus on is what you should and should not put down your drain because it is in a way a living system.
Ayesha: You mentioned hundreds of miles of pipes. Can you give us a sense of how many miles of pipe we are talking about for Fulton County?
Amy: The distribution lines which carries clean water are over 1,200 miles and collection lines which carry waste water are over 2,000 miles.
Ayesha: These numbers are only for Fulton County and Fulton County is 1 of 159 counties in Georgia?
Jennifer: Yes, these numbers apply only to Fulton County. We service around 75,000 residential drinking water customers in north Fulton and around 86,500 residential sewer customers in north and south Fulton, as well as commercial and industrial customers.
Ayesha: What about rain water that is directed from the impermeable surfaces into the storm drains. Is that connected to the sewer lines?
Amy: The storm drain is a completely different pipeline than the sewer line. For most places that's true, but there are a few municipalities in the country that have that as a combined system, but most places have them separated.
Pollution entering sewer lines from homes. Educational programs to address it.
Ayesha: What are some of the things that you are tracking from homes that can be easily avoided. Maybe we can talk about kitchen waste. My pet peeve is the garbage disposal. A lot of vegetable scraps go into it, which can be composted, and a lot of water is used to flush all of that down. From your perspective, are garbage disposals useful, or not?
Jennifer: Garbage disposals were not always around. When they were invented in the 70’s they were a new convenience for a kitchen. Like having a freezer or getting water directly out of your fridge. Personally I don't have a garbage disposal because I can scrape everything into the trash. Many people like the convenience of a garbage disposal but are not well versed in what to dispose of into the garbage disposal. As a result of people not understanding that they not only put vegetable scraps but also fats, oils, and grease (FOG) into the garbage disposals. FOG entering the sewer lines is a huge problem.
Amy: That is one of the problems. Nobody's ever going to go through their food scraps and pick out what can and can't go into the garbage disposal. It feels like it's all or nothing. So it's always going to have some of that fat, oil, and grease.
Jennifer: We have a FOG program – Fats, Oil and Grease to educate people. So people put FOG down the drain and also flushable wipes. (By the way, flushable wipes are not flushable. But we will get back to that later.) But these wipes act like Velcro and attracts all that fats, oils, and grease. Then the whole thing solidifies and can lead to an over flow or can backup into homes and businesses If it backs up into your home, it's not just the eggshells that are coming into your home but it's all kinds of waste including toilet waste that back up. Sometimes it will back out and come out of the manhole, resulting in what is commonly known as a sanitary sewer overflow (SSO).
A misconception that people have about back ups is that the water utility company is going to come clean that out of their house. We only clean things on the utility side, we don't clean out anything on the homeowners side. These clean ups can be very expensive. So we have developed our FOG program to educate people about it and to promote a positive change in behavior.
Ayesha: You mentioned flushable wipes are not flushable. Can you elaborate?
Amy: Every time I tell a group of people not to flush those flushable wipes you can see people’s eyes get bigger and you know that they're calculating how many they have flushed in their lifetime.
Jennifer: How can we expect people to know that they're not flushable if it says on the packaging that it is flushable?
Ayesha: Exactly! But why can’t they be flushed? Do they not disintegrate like toilet paper?
Amy: Wipes are part of a group we call “ non-dispersibles”. For example paper towels, sanitary products, etc. They don’t break apart easily in the sewer system.
Ayesha: Are there any regulations to help curb this kind of misleading marketing, because flushable does imply they can be flushed.
Amy: There are groups such as the Water Environment Federation and American Water Works Association, working toward labeling standards for non-dispersibles. Our efforts focus on educating the public about the problems associated with them.
Ayesha: What other problematic things are entering these pipes from our homes?
Amy: As far as other things that end up going down the drain, what I tell people especially with the toilet is if it didn't come out of you and it's not toilet paper, it shouldn't go in there. Other things that should not be poured down the drain are household hazards like paints or pharmaceuticals and other harsh cleaning products. Treating all these substances is a bit more difficult and therefore makes it more expensive to treat it.
Ayesha: Can you tell us how and why prescription medication is entering the wastewater?
Jennifer: Generally people flush prescriptions in the toilet because they don't want other people to have access to that kind of medication. And it's easy because people have done it for so long and that’s just something people inherently do because they've seen their mom do it and so on. The water industry has been looking into it and working to improve things.
Ayesha: What is a safe way to dispose of unused medication?
Jennifer: We have permanent collection bins around the county for people to drop those things off. They just need to remove the labels and any identifying information before they drop off the medication. We also have amnesty days, which are basically take-back days for pharmaceuticals. You can call your local police department or fire station to ask if they have a bin.
Ayesha: What quantity are we talking about? How much medication is being dumped into the sewer lines?
Amy: We don't have a lot of good data on that because it is what we called an emerging concern. It's something that's coming out and we want to prevent it as much as possible but we don't have direct correlational data. X leads to Y. But it's being studied.
Jennifer: And if findings from that study means upgrading wastewater plants it will cost millions and millions of dollars because you will need to have that new technology retrofitted into an older plant, which is not a simple fix. And that is why education is so important to help curtail it.
Ayesha: I would like to pause here for a second and remind readers that the reason water utility companies work so hard to clean all this out is because, as you mentioned before, after the wastewater is treated, it is released back to the river it came from and someone else is going to use this water downstream.
Jennifer: Garbage disposals were not always around. When they were invented in the 70’s they were a new convenience for a kitchen. Like having a freezer or getting water directly out of your fridge. Personally I don't have a garbage disposal because I can scrape everything into the trash. Many people like the convenience of a garbage disposal but are not well versed in what to dispose of into the garbage disposal. As a result of people not understanding that they not only put vegetable scraps but also fats, oils, and grease (FOG) into the garbage disposals. FOG entering the sewer lines is a huge problem.
Amy: That is one of the problems. Nobody's ever going to go through their food scraps and pick out what can and can't go into the garbage disposal. It feels like it's all or nothing. So it's always going to have some of that fat, oil, and grease.
Jennifer: We have a FOG program – Fats, Oil and Grease to educate people. So people put FOG down the drain and also flushable wipes. (By the way, flushable wipes are not flushable. But we will get back to that later.) But these wipes act like Velcro and attracts all that fats, oils, and grease. Then the whole thing solidifies and can lead to an over flow or can backup into homes and businesses If it backs up into your home, it's not just the eggshells that are coming into your home but it's all kinds of waste including toilet waste that back up. Sometimes it will back out and come out of the manhole, resulting in what is commonly known as a sanitary sewer overflow (SSO).
A misconception that people have about back ups is that the water utility company is going to come clean that out of their house. We only clean things on the utility side, we don't clean out anything on the homeowners side. These clean ups can be very expensive. So we have developed our FOG program to educate people about it and to promote a positive change in behavior.
Ayesha: You mentioned flushable wipes are not flushable. Can you elaborate?
Amy: Every time I tell a group of people not to flush those flushable wipes you can see people’s eyes get bigger and you know that they're calculating how many they have flushed in their lifetime.
Jennifer: How can we expect people to know that they're not flushable if it says on the packaging that it is flushable?
Ayesha: Exactly! But why can’t they be flushed? Do they not disintegrate like toilet paper?
Amy: Wipes are part of a group we call “ non-dispersibles”. For example paper towels, sanitary products, etc. They don’t break apart easily in the sewer system.
Ayesha: Are there any regulations to help curb this kind of misleading marketing, because flushable does imply they can be flushed.
Amy: There are groups such as the Water Environment Federation and American Water Works Association, working toward labeling standards for non-dispersibles. Our efforts focus on educating the public about the problems associated with them.
Ayesha: What other problematic things are entering these pipes from our homes?
Amy: As far as other things that end up going down the drain, what I tell people especially with the toilet is if it didn't come out of you and it's not toilet paper, it shouldn't go in there. Other things that should not be poured down the drain are household hazards like paints or pharmaceuticals and other harsh cleaning products. Treating all these substances is a bit more difficult and therefore makes it more expensive to treat it.
Ayesha: Can you tell us how and why prescription medication is entering the wastewater?
Jennifer: Generally people flush prescriptions in the toilet because they don't want other people to have access to that kind of medication. And it's easy because people have done it for so long and that’s just something people inherently do because they've seen their mom do it and so on. The water industry has been looking into it and working to improve things.
Ayesha: What is a safe way to dispose of unused medication?
Jennifer: We have permanent collection bins around the county for people to drop those things off. They just need to remove the labels and any identifying information before they drop off the medication. We also have amnesty days, which are basically take-back days for pharmaceuticals. You can call your local police department or fire station to ask if they have a bin.
Ayesha: What quantity are we talking about? How much medication is being dumped into the sewer lines?
Amy: We don't have a lot of good data on that because it is what we called an emerging concern. It's something that's coming out and we want to prevent it as much as possible but we don't have direct correlational data. X leads to Y. But it's being studied.
Jennifer: And if findings from that study means upgrading wastewater plants it will cost millions and millions of dollars because you will need to have that new technology retrofitted into an older plant, which is not a simple fix. And that is why education is so important to help curtail it.
Ayesha: I would like to pause here for a second and remind readers that the reason water utility companies work so hard to clean all this out is because, as you mentioned before, after the wastewater is treated, it is released back to the river it came from and someone else is going to use this water downstream.
Pollution entering waterways from storm drains. Educational programs to curtail it.
Ayesha: So far we have talked about pollutants entering the sewer system from within the house. Given that the sewer lines are separate from the storm drains, what kind of pollutants are getting picked up from outside the house along with the rainwater that is directed into the storm drains?
Jennifer: We design our cities to move stormwater off the roads as quickly as possible. So when it rains the water that is directed to the storm drain picks up pollutants such as oil and other vehicle fluids from parking lots, roads, and other surfaces. Pollution falls into two main categories: point source, where the source is easy to identify, and non-point source, which is harder to track and include things like fertilizer from your lawn, litter, and motor oil from your driveway, etc. The storm drains discharge water directly into a creek or a nearby water body untreated which results in pollution entering our waterways.
Ayesha: It sounds like there is no way to check or filter these pollutants in real time before they enter the rivers?
Jennifer: No, there is not, because we are trying to move large volumes of water away from the roadways to avoid other kinds of issues like flooding, road accidents, destruction to property and so on.
Ayesha: But now the water is in the river with all the chemical and biological contaminants it has picked up on its way. Now what?
Jennifer: There are ways of checking that. We have industrial monitoring stations along rivers and creeks, geared for tracking point source pollution USGS has monitoring stations which can measure flow and turbidity. Several environmental groups monitor for bacteria, fertilizers, pesticides and report to see what those levels are because they want to be able to track it back and find the source of contamination.
Amy: We also have volunteers all over Georgia that monitor their own local water body. Jennifer runs the program at Fulton County called ‘Adopt a Stream’ program where people volunteer to take samples.
Jennifer: Citizens conduct chemical check once a month and biological assessment every quarter. They see what is living in the creeks and get a snapshot into the health of the creek and a real time view of the watershed. Fulton County also conducts bacterial monitoring using the Adopt a Stream protocol
The Adopt a Stream program is a statewide program and we're an arm of it. We train people in one or all three of the protocols, which are to check for chemical, biological, or bacterial contamination. The volunteers participate as citizen scientists and they can call us directly with any water or sewer related concerns. It could be something as simple as calling to tell us that they smell something funky in their backyard. In this case, it could be a situation where a tree fell and broke a sewer pipe or there could be a sanitary sewer overflow (SSO). When they alert us, we dispatch our crew to investigate the complaint. We don't want such leaks to stay undetected or unrepaired because that is not healthy for the environment and it can also result in a fine for Fulton County. The Adopt a Stream program is a great way for citizens to get involved and be our eyes and ears.
Ayesha: Is dog waste considered a water contaminant? While most people are good about picking up after their dogs some are not. In instances when dog waste is left on the streets rainwater can flushe it into storm drain and into the river. Can pet waste become a problem for our rivers?
Jennifer: It's a big problem. We have a whole campaign called “Pick it up, it's your duty”. While conducting our programs some kids will say they do it and some kids say they don't. Some kids will tell on the parents.
Amy: And some kids tell on themselves.
Jennifer: One educational tool we use is we have dog poop bags in the shape of a red fire hydrant that we give out at festivals and educational programs. We recently partnered with Fulton County Animal Services and we give out plastic fire hydrants that can be attached to your key chains which have the plastic bags inside it. The campaign is to encourage people to pick up after their pets because the river systems can't handle that waste.
Amy: There are two main concerns around that. One, that it transmits disease and number two, it has a lot of nutrients which can cause river eutrophication, which means having too many nutrients in the water system, which cause algae blooms.
Ayesha: That is interesting but people can argue that rivers have wildlife around them all the time, so why is a little bit more dog waste entering the waterways such a big deal?
Amy: Wildlife is a problem too. But we have a much higher populations of the domesticated animals compared to wildlife in a natural habitat. So say you're in an urban area and every other person in your building has a dog or a cat. That is a very high population of animals in an area that it would not ordinarily support.
Jennifer: In a natural habitat wildlife is going be more spread out it's not going to have a few hundred dogs in just that small area.
Amy: Natural selection is going to control for that. It's not like if you didn't have dogs you can drink out of the river without it being treated. What it means is that having a higher concentration of domesticated animals in a small area increases the level of nutrients significantly.
Ayesha:And increased levels of nutrients cause algae blooms?
Amy: You can see this on a large scale where the Mississippi river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. On its way down from the Midwest it's collecting a lot of nutrients from both crop farming and livestock that it empties out into the Gulf of Mexico. And every summer there is an enormous hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico where there is not enough oxygen to support life. That causes a huge problem not only for the wildlife that lives there but also people who make a living off of fishing and shrimping in that region. Dog waste entering our waterways is sort of a smaller scale version of the same thing.
Ayesha: I’m glad you brought up how chemical runoffs from the Midwest can cause an algae bloom in the Gulf of Mexico. Because the next thing I was going to talk about was a recent article published by National Geographic, which stated that about 18 billion pounds of plastic ends up in our oceans every year. Now someone living in a landlocked city like Atlanta which is hundreds of miles from the ocean may wonder how that one straw or plastic bag that got away from him/her in their garage can reach the ocean. My question is, is that person playing a part in polluting our oceans and can that piece of plastic actually reach the ocean?
Amy: Every body of water is connected to every other water body through the water cycle. So what runs off of your yard runs into a stream or creek and that in turn runs into a larger river and eventually into the ocean. So all of our water is connected. So things don't stop where you put them; storm water is the conveyance. When we think of that one thing that got away from us, we just think, oh it's just that one but we have to remember there are 7.2 billion of us and if everybody just does one then that is 7.2 billion pieces of plastic ending up in the ocean.
Jennifer: Even before talking about oceans and the impact on marine life we can talk about how these pollutants affect the animals that live in the freshwater around here. What lives in the ocean is no different than what lives in our rivers. So the effect is very similar.
Amy: Eutrophication, changes in the pH, temperature differences and all those things can affect the wildlife living in rivers..
Jennifer: For example the blue heron fishes by sight and if there's a ton of litter and it can’t see then it's not going to be able to fish and survive. So that food chain is really degraded down and there's nothing to eat within the food chain. Then that affects fisherman and that in turn affects the economy.
Ayesha:True. It’s not just the food chain but how that trickles into our economy.
Jennifer: Just look at businesses like REI or Patagonia. Both businesses are based around outdoor experiences but if there aren’t good opportunities for outdoor experiences that affects a lot of people.
Ayesha: Fulton County runs a program called Adopt a Drain program? Can you please elaborate on it?
Jennifer: Yes, we have a program called Adopt a Drain. The program is geared towards helping the community be aware of the waterways in the area they reside in or go to school at. This awareness is important because people need to know that stormwater from their neighborhood is discharged directly into a creek or river without filtration. The message the program coveys is that when debris like dry leaves, grass clippings, and other litter enters the storm drains, those things end up in our rivers, clogging and polluting them. Along with that, the program also teaches them about the topography of the region, they learn how to use a map, and they also learn that when debris blocks curb inlets, it can cause flooding on the roadways. The way the program runs is, we meet with a school or a civic group such as the Girl Scouts. We map out the storm drain and waterways in the area, and we glue colorful stickers on the curb inlet with the message “ Dump No Waste, Drains to Stream”
Jennifer: We design our cities to move stormwater off the roads as quickly as possible. So when it rains the water that is directed to the storm drain picks up pollutants such as oil and other vehicle fluids from parking lots, roads, and other surfaces. Pollution falls into two main categories: point source, where the source is easy to identify, and non-point source, which is harder to track and include things like fertilizer from your lawn, litter, and motor oil from your driveway, etc. The storm drains discharge water directly into a creek or a nearby water body untreated which results in pollution entering our waterways.
Ayesha: It sounds like there is no way to check or filter these pollutants in real time before they enter the rivers?
Jennifer: No, there is not, because we are trying to move large volumes of water away from the roadways to avoid other kinds of issues like flooding, road accidents, destruction to property and so on.
Ayesha: But now the water is in the river with all the chemical and biological contaminants it has picked up on its way. Now what?
Jennifer: There are ways of checking that. We have industrial monitoring stations along rivers and creeks, geared for tracking point source pollution USGS has monitoring stations which can measure flow and turbidity. Several environmental groups monitor for bacteria, fertilizers, pesticides and report to see what those levels are because they want to be able to track it back and find the source of contamination.
Amy: We also have volunteers all over Georgia that monitor their own local water body. Jennifer runs the program at Fulton County called ‘Adopt a Stream’ program where people volunteer to take samples.
Jennifer: Citizens conduct chemical check once a month and biological assessment every quarter. They see what is living in the creeks and get a snapshot into the health of the creek and a real time view of the watershed. Fulton County also conducts bacterial monitoring using the Adopt a Stream protocol
The Adopt a Stream program is a statewide program and we're an arm of it. We train people in one or all three of the protocols, which are to check for chemical, biological, or bacterial contamination. The volunteers participate as citizen scientists and they can call us directly with any water or sewer related concerns. It could be something as simple as calling to tell us that they smell something funky in their backyard. In this case, it could be a situation where a tree fell and broke a sewer pipe or there could be a sanitary sewer overflow (SSO). When they alert us, we dispatch our crew to investigate the complaint. We don't want such leaks to stay undetected or unrepaired because that is not healthy for the environment and it can also result in a fine for Fulton County. The Adopt a Stream program is a great way for citizens to get involved and be our eyes and ears.
Ayesha: Is dog waste considered a water contaminant? While most people are good about picking up after their dogs some are not. In instances when dog waste is left on the streets rainwater can flushe it into storm drain and into the river. Can pet waste become a problem for our rivers?
Jennifer: It's a big problem. We have a whole campaign called “Pick it up, it's your duty”. While conducting our programs some kids will say they do it and some kids say they don't. Some kids will tell on the parents.
Amy: And some kids tell on themselves.
Jennifer: One educational tool we use is we have dog poop bags in the shape of a red fire hydrant that we give out at festivals and educational programs. We recently partnered with Fulton County Animal Services and we give out plastic fire hydrants that can be attached to your key chains which have the plastic bags inside it. The campaign is to encourage people to pick up after their pets because the river systems can't handle that waste.
Amy: There are two main concerns around that. One, that it transmits disease and number two, it has a lot of nutrients which can cause river eutrophication, which means having too many nutrients in the water system, which cause algae blooms.
Ayesha: That is interesting but people can argue that rivers have wildlife around them all the time, so why is a little bit more dog waste entering the waterways such a big deal?
Amy: Wildlife is a problem too. But we have a much higher populations of the domesticated animals compared to wildlife in a natural habitat. So say you're in an urban area and every other person in your building has a dog or a cat. That is a very high population of animals in an area that it would not ordinarily support.
Jennifer: In a natural habitat wildlife is going be more spread out it's not going to have a few hundred dogs in just that small area.
Amy: Natural selection is going to control for that. It's not like if you didn't have dogs you can drink out of the river without it being treated. What it means is that having a higher concentration of domesticated animals in a small area increases the level of nutrients significantly.
Ayesha:And increased levels of nutrients cause algae blooms?
Amy: You can see this on a large scale where the Mississippi river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. On its way down from the Midwest it's collecting a lot of nutrients from both crop farming and livestock that it empties out into the Gulf of Mexico. And every summer there is an enormous hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico where there is not enough oxygen to support life. That causes a huge problem not only for the wildlife that lives there but also people who make a living off of fishing and shrimping in that region. Dog waste entering our waterways is sort of a smaller scale version of the same thing.
Ayesha: I’m glad you brought up how chemical runoffs from the Midwest can cause an algae bloom in the Gulf of Mexico. Because the next thing I was going to talk about was a recent article published by National Geographic, which stated that about 18 billion pounds of plastic ends up in our oceans every year. Now someone living in a landlocked city like Atlanta which is hundreds of miles from the ocean may wonder how that one straw or plastic bag that got away from him/her in their garage can reach the ocean. My question is, is that person playing a part in polluting our oceans and can that piece of plastic actually reach the ocean?
Amy: Every body of water is connected to every other water body through the water cycle. So what runs off of your yard runs into a stream or creek and that in turn runs into a larger river and eventually into the ocean. So all of our water is connected. So things don't stop where you put them; storm water is the conveyance. When we think of that one thing that got away from us, we just think, oh it's just that one but we have to remember there are 7.2 billion of us and if everybody just does one then that is 7.2 billion pieces of plastic ending up in the ocean.
Jennifer: Even before talking about oceans and the impact on marine life we can talk about how these pollutants affect the animals that live in the freshwater around here. What lives in the ocean is no different than what lives in our rivers. So the effect is very similar.
Amy: Eutrophication, changes in the pH, temperature differences and all those things can affect the wildlife living in rivers..
Jennifer: For example the blue heron fishes by sight and if there's a ton of litter and it can’t see then it's not going to be able to fish and survive. So that food chain is really degraded down and there's nothing to eat within the food chain. Then that affects fisherman and that in turn affects the economy.
Ayesha:True. It’s not just the food chain but how that trickles into our economy.
Jennifer: Just look at businesses like REI or Patagonia. Both businesses are based around outdoor experiences but if there aren’t good opportunities for outdoor experiences that affects a lot of people.
Ayesha: Fulton County runs a program called Adopt a Drain program? Can you please elaborate on it?
Jennifer: Yes, we have a program called Adopt a Drain. The program is geared towards helping the community be aware of the waterways in the area they reside in or go to school at. This awareness is important because people need to know that stormwater from their neighborhood is discharged directly into a creek or river without filtration. The message the program coveys is that when debris like dry leaves, grass clippings, and other litter enters the storm drains, those things end up in our rivers, clogging and polluting them. Along with that, the program also teaches them about the topography of the region, they learn how to use a map, and they also learn that when debris blocks curb inlets, it can cause flooding on the roadways. The way the program runs is, we meet with a school or a civic group such as the Girl Scouts. We map out the storm drain and waterways in the area, and we glue colorful stickers on the curb inlet with the message “ Dump No Waste, Drains to Stream”
Water scarcity and water conservation - Educational programs, Policy and Legislation.
Ayesha: So far we have discussed the different kinds of pollutants entering our waterways. For this next segment I would like to focus on water scarcity and water conservation. These two go hand in hand. As I was reading about the water crisis in Cape Town, South Africa I was surprised to learn that invasive plant species have also contributed in straining the water capacity of the city. They have a lot of eucalyptus pines and Australian acacia, which are considered invasive for that region and they can take up about 10 billion gallons of water annually. Do you have a program designed to educate people on invasive plants?
Amy: We don't do a whole lot with invasive plants. But if we have a group of high school students and we are talking about environmental sciences or about wetlands then we go into that a little bit. The National Park Service does a lot of work with invasive plant species and the Chattahoochee National Recreation area do all day events with people who volunteer to go out for clean ups.
Jennifer: What I like to emphasize when I talk about invasive plants is that they provide no benefit for the ecosystem they grow in. In fact, they are quite detrimental. They compete for water, nutrients, and sunlight with the native plant species and can easily take over a landscape. In the context of stormwater, the roots of native plants play an important role in reducing soil erosion and increasing water absorption. They create a natural and healthy stream buffer. Losing native vegetation means a loss of natural buffers. In these situations, people are surprised at how much standing water they can have or how flooding gets worse.
Ayesha: When it comes to conservation, good governance and public policy makes it easy for the end user to be a responsible consumer. That is reflected in what California has accomplished in water conservation in the last few years. In a short span of nine months between April 2015 through February 2016, they were able to save 1.19 million acre-feet of water and their target was 1.24 million acre-feet. How does Georgia compare to California in public policy and water conservation?
Amy: Georgia is thought to be water conservation forward when compared to California. We are one of the top states when it comes to water conservation. I'm very proud of what our area has done in the water arena both through education and also through legislation. In 2010 we passed the Georgia Water Stewardship Act. It changed regulations as far as what fixtures you can put into homes when they are being built or when it is time to replace them. With the Water Stewardship Act it is now illegal to sell a toilet in Georgia that uses more than 1.28 gallons per flush. So it doesn't put that burden on the individual consumer to check and make sure they're not buying anything illegal. It's the manufactures, the distributors in the state that have to take that upon themselves. They were giving two years to make that transition. It’s been six years since that went into effect so the manufacturers have transitioned into it.
If you have an older home and you have a toilet that was installed in the early 80s or early 90s it probably uses 3 1/2 gallons of water. If it's older than that it could use 5 or 7 gallons depending on when the house was built. There is a fair number of them out there because back then we built things to last forever and they all still work. You can buy a toilet now that uses less than 1 gallon of water to flush. The Water Stewardship Act limited them to 1.28 gallons and it also required Water Sense labeling. Are you familiar with the Water Sense program?
Ayesha: No I'm not
Amy: Do you know what Energy Star is?
Ayesha: Yes, I know what that is.
Amy: Everybody is familiar with Energy Star but nobody really knows about Water Sense is because they don't have the same level of funding or the educational outreach that Energy Star does. And also because we pay less for water than we do for power, we pay less attention to it. Basically Water Sense is the Energy Star of water labeling program that allows you to know that the fixture has been third-party tested for efficiency so it uses less water. But it has also been tested for performance so you know it's going to work even though it uses less water. There were a lot of missteps when the new technology for water conservation with the low flow toilets and showerheads were introduced, we had a lot of issues with them. They basically cut down the volume of water and your shower head was giving you like a little dribble of water and the toilets were not flushing properly so everybody was like I'm not using this. So it was a bit of a struggle but now that we have this better high efficiency technology it gets people to give it another go. We do have incentives for that. We do a lot of giveaways when we go to events. We give away Water Sense labeled showerheads, aerators, we give dye tabs to get people to check their toilets for leaks and we also have a toilet rebate program.
We have a toilet rebate program for single-family residential home owners and also for multi family properties like apartments. So if you have an older home which was built in 1993 or earlier and you replace your toilets with Water Sense toilets you can get a rebate on your water bill or credit on your water bill to help with that. It is a similar rebate for multi family properties like apartments which were built in 1993 or earlier. It's a little bit more extensive process, it has a little bit more paperwork but it's still not that bad.
Ayesha: So besides the high-efficiency toilets which help with water conservation, do you have any other programs that people should be aware about?
Amy: The toilet rebate is our biggest financial incentive program that we have for water conservation.
Jennifer: It pays back the fastest. High-efficiency washing machines are a lot more expensive than a $100 -$200 toilet. Therefore, the rebate on the toilet will recover the cost of the toilet much faster than a washing machine. Depending on the kind of toilet purchased you may be able to recover that cost in less than two years.
Amy: And it cuts your gallons per flush in half so you're going to see that pretty quickly in your water bill.
Ayesha: You mentioned that you give away aerators and low flow showerheads. What is the function of the aerators in a faucet?
Jennifer: It slows down the flow of water by introducing air and therefore reduces water usage.
Amy: We don't do a whole lot with invasive plants. But if we have a group of high school students and we are talking about environmental sciences or about wetlands then we go into that a little bit. The National Park Service does a lot of work with invasive plant species and the Chattahoochee National Recreation area do all day events with people who volunteer to go out for clean ups.
Jennifer: What I like to emphasize when I talk about invasive plants is that they provide no benefit for the ecosystem they grow in. In fact, they are quite detrimental. They compete for water, nutrients, and sunlight with the native plant species and can easily take over a landscape. In the context of stormwater, the roots of native plants play an important role in reducing soil erosion and increasing water absorption. They create a natural and healthy stream buffer. Losing native vegetation means a loss of natural buffers. In these situations, people are surprised at how much standing water they can have or how flooding gets worse.
Ayesha: When it comes to conservation, good governance and public policy makes it easy for the end user to be a responsible consumer. That is reflected in what California has accomplished in water conservation in the last few years. In a short span of nine months between April 2015 through February 2016, they were able to save 1.19 million acre-feet of water and their target was 1.24 million acre-feet. How does Georgia compare to California in public policy and water conservation?
Amy: Georgia is thought to be water conservation forward when compared to California. We are one of the top states when it comes to water conservation. I'm very proud of what our area has done in the water arena both through education and also through legislation. In 2010 we passed the Georgia Water Stewardship Act. It changed regulations as far as what fixtures you can put into homes when they are being built or when it is time to replace them. With the Water Stewardship Act it is now illegal to sell a toilet in Georgia that uses more than 1.28 gallons per flush. So it doesn't put that burden on the individual consumer to check and make sure they're not buying anything illegal. It's the manufactures, the distributors in the state that have to take that upon themselves. They were giving two years to make that transition. It’s been six years since that went into effect so the manufacturers have transitioned into it.
If you have an older home and you have a toilet that was installed in the early 80s or early 90s it probably uses 3 1/2 gallons of water. If it's older than that it could use 5 or 7 gallons depending on when the house was built. There is a fair number of them out there because back then we built things to last forever and they all still work. You can buy a toilet now that uses less than 1 gallon of water to flush. The Water Stewardship Act limited them to 1.28 gallons and it also required Water Sense labeling. Are you familiar with the Water Sense program?
Ayesha: No I'm not
Amy: Do you know what Energy Star is?
Ayesha: Yes, I know what that is.
Amy: Everybody is familiar with Energy Star but nobody really knows about Water Sense is because they don't have the same level of funding or the educational outreach that Energy Star does. And also because we pay less for water than we do for power, we pay less attention to it. Basically Water Sense is the Energy Star of water labeling program that allows you to know that the fixture has been third-party tested for efficiency so it uses less water. But it has also been tested for performance so you know it's going to work even though it uses less water. There were a lot of missteps when the new technology for water conservation with the low flow toilets and showerheads were introduced, we had a lot of issues with them. They basically cut down the volume of water and your shower head was giving you like a little dribble of water and the toilets were not flushing properly so everybody was like I'm not using this. So it was a bit of a struggle but now that we have this better high efficiency technology it gets people to give it another go. We do have incentives for that. We do a lot of giveaways when we go to events. We give away Water Sense labeled showerheads, aerators, we give dye tabs to get people to check their toilets for leaks and we also have a toilet rebate program.
We have a toilet rebate program for single-family residential home owners and also for multi family properties like apartments. So if you have an older home which was built in 1993 or earlier and you replace your toilets with Water Sense toilets you can get a rebate on your water bill or credit on your water bill to help with that. It is a similar rebate for multi family properties like apartments which were built in 1993 or earlier. It's a little bit more extensive process, it has a little bit more paperwork but it's still not that bad.
Ayesha: So besides the high-efficiency toilets which help with water conservation, do you have any other programs that people should be aware about?
Amy: The toilet rebate is our biggest financial incentive program that we have for water conservation.
Jennifer: It pays back the fastest. High-efficiency washing machines are a lot more expensive than a $100 -$200 toilet. Therefore, the rebate on the toilet will recover the cost of the toilet much faster than a washing machine. Depending on the kind of toilet purchased you may be able to recover that cost in less than two years.
Amy: And it cuts your gallons per flush in half so you're going to see that pretty quickly in your water bill.
Ayesha: You mentioned that you give away aerators and low flow showerheads. What is the function of the aerators in a faucet?
Jennifer: It slows down the flow of water by introducing air and therefore reduces water usage.
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Ayesha: Considering what it does the aerator definitely plays an important role in water conservation. Some of us are in the habit of letting the faucet run when we brush our teeth, or while we shave. That is a lot of water that gets wasted. Just out of curiosity if we want to find out what that wastage per minute translates to then we can look for Gallons Per Minute (GPM) water flow marking on the faucets. Most faucets in the United States have that marked on them.
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The EPA estimates that we can save almost 3,000 gallons of water per year if we just turn off the faucet while brushing our teeth. |
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"If every home in the United States replaced existing faucets and aerators with WaterSense labeled models, we could save nearly $1.2 billion in water and energy costs and 64 billion gallons of water across the country annually—equivalent to the annual household water needs of more than 680,000 American homes." - Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) |
As mentioned in the introduction, water scarcity may slowly become the new reality for a number of cities around the world. Essentially, how we use water today is going to define our access to water resources in the future. This is particularly important to reflect on because Cape Town, South Africa was predicted to reach “Day Zero”, the day the city would have officially run out of water in March 2018. Fortunately, that day has come and gone and Day Zero has now moved to 2019 thanks to strict water conservation measures. If extreme preventative measures had not been taken, the citizens of Cape Town would have been rationed less than 7 gallons of water a day after Day Zero.
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The point I am trying to make is whether we live in a city projected to face water scarcity or not we can proactively change our water usage habits to conserve water. I believe, every effort we make to conserve water is an investment in our own water security for the future.
Jennifer: Yes, it is.
Jennifer: Yes, it is.
Ayesha: What other programs are in place for water conservation?
Amy: Another thing that we put a lot of effort into educating people is on outdoor water use, because that is where we use a lot of our water in the summer time. Particularly in residential areas where people have large lawns which have automatic irrigation systems. Hopefully they're running these irrigation systems in the morning or late at night and not in the middle of the day. But what that also means is they are running this at times when no one is there to provide oversight. People may not be awake that early in the morning or it’s too dark outside to see it in the late evening. So if you have a broken sprinkler head or it's gotten flipped around and it's aimed at the street you don't realize that you are wasting a lot of water that way. Sometimes people call us and tell us, “Hey we saw this water just pouring down the storm drain from this subdivision.” Then we call them to let them know about it and it gives them a chance to correct it. We do have a Waste Water Ordinance, which is to avoid excessive run off. It is to address situations in which someone may be over irrigating or if they have a leak in their irrigation system or if their sprinkler heads are misdirected, you can actually face a fine. And that's not something that's common because when we let them know that a problem exists they want to fix it because no one wants their water bill to spike.
Georgia has a year-round irrigation schedule. You can water any day but you're not allowed to turn on your irrigation between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm. But if we go into a drought declaration which, is something that is controlled by the state for our area, then those regulations may change. You may be limited to watering only on certain days. And the best way to find out if you're not familiar with the regulations is to call your water provider and find out what the current status is.
Ayesha: Just to clarify, the water regulation between 10 am and 4 pm is because evaporation is the highest at that time.
Amy: Yes that's right. You lose a lot of water to evaporation at that time of the day.
Ayesha: Another way to conserve water is to recycle grey water. Are there any mandates in place for reusing grey water?
Jennifer: Car washes built after 2001 are required to recycle a minimum of 50 % of their water.
City of Atlanta allows grey water but you have to be permitted for it and it can only be used for flushing your toilet. It's very strict because it can be very dangerous.
Amy does a rain barrel workshop in which she teaches people how to make a rain barrel and harvest rain water. That water can be used for washing your car or watering your garden. I think in places like Australia and other countries that have different water scarcity issues they have that infrastructure set up for water purification within the house. I'm not very well versed on that but from what I know it is all one package. So you have the permitting process in place, an industry standard purification system, people who are installing them are trained and are aware of the rules. It is a whole package but we don’t have that infrastructure here yet.
Amy: On the other end of the spectrum you have areas where you're not allowed to have a rain barrels to collect water or have a cistern in place because you're required to allow that water to flow back through the watershed to recharge the rivers and streams.
Jennifer: It all depends on how you are set up because water rights are a big deal especially out west with agriculture and cattle farming.
Ayesha: So depending on where you live that may define how much water you can collect and reuse?
Amy: Yes, water rights are done differently in different parts of the country. It's a complicated issue but a very interesting one.
Jennifer: It's a very passionate issue - people that have the water and people that need the water.
Amy: Water is life and water is money. Also, when you are conserving water by collecting rain water or reusing grey water it can potentially delay the needs for those capacity upgrades to your system. You can add more people to your area without having to expand or increase the size of your treatment plants. So you can support a larger population.
Ayesha: The Clean Water Act was one of the first major legislations enacted to address water pollution. Can you touch upon that?
Jennifer: I think it's very important. We wouldn't have this job if it wasn't for the Clean Water Act. It was enacted in 1972 because there was a huge need for it. I think the Chattahoochee River is so much cleaner because of that, industry cleaned up, everybody cleaned up because of that. If we did not we would have been in a really bad situation. We're so lucky that we have these rules and regulations because we are getting safe healthy drinking water delivered to our homes and businesses.
While these types of regulations are important we have to understand that there has to be a common denominator between the regulators, the utility companies and the consumers. Everybody needs to come to the table because that is going to generate the best solution. When so many different people and groups are involved you have to come to a reasonable solution for everybody.
Amy: We all share that common responsibility.
Amy: Another important regulation is the Safe Drinking Water Act. The Consumer Confidence Report comes from that. Every water utility company in the country is required to put one out every year to their customers and it basically includes the summary of the results of water testing for the previous year for that system. What was found, in what levels, if there were any permit violations? So that creates transparency and lets your customers know.
Ayesha: Technology is at the forefront of everything. It has allowed us to make significant improvements in water quality and water management. This was especially evident when I toured the Johns Creek Environmental Campus which is a state-of-the-art wastewater management facility. What are some of the new technologies in the pipeline that might become a reality in the near future for individual consumers?
Amy: Eventually technology is going to play a very big role in water conservation. There are some utilities in the country that are starting to implement what we call AMI which is Advance Metering Infrastructure which is almost like a sub metering in different parts of your home and can take readings on a regular basis. For example, when you go into your utility account you can look at it and it'll probably tell you exactly how much energy you used yesterday versus today. But if you look at your water bill it only tells you how much water you used on a monthly basis. With the Advanced Metering Infrastructure they can actually see what you are using in real time. It can help detect leaks in your homes or if you have a spike in your consumption. There are two barriers to that though. One, it is very expensive to implement. It's going to be a while before we see that nationwide and the other is that people have privacy concerns with that kind of data collection. Which is fair. But the benefits of it are pretty high.
Ayesha: And on that optimistic note thank you both for your time and providing these insights into this very complex process of water harvestation, collection, purification and finally releasing it back to our rivers. Thank you for what you do and in ensuring the citizens of Fulton County have clean, safe, drinking water!
Amy: Another thing that we put a lot of effort into educating people is on outdoor water use, because that is where we use a lot of our water in the summer time. Particularly in residential areas where people have large lawns which have automatic irrigation systems. Hopefully they're running these irrigation systems in the morning or late at night and not in the middle of the day. But what that also means is they are running this at times when no one is there to provide oversight. People may not be awake that early in the morning or it’s too dark outside to see it in the late evening. So if you have a broken sprinkler head or it's gotten flipped around and it's aimed at the street you don't realize that you are wasting a lot of water that way. Sometimes people call us and tell us, “Hey we saw this water just pouring down the storm drain from this subdivision.” Then we call them to let them know about it and it gives them a chance to correct it. We do have a Waste Water Ordinance, which is to avoid excessive run off. It is to address situations in which someone may be over irrigating or if they have a leak in their irrigation system or if their sprinkler heads are misdirected, you can actually face a fine. And that's not something that's common because when we let them know that a problem exists they want to fix it because no one wants their water bill to spike.
Georgia has a year-round irrigation schedule. You can water any day but you're not allowed to turn on your irrigation between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm. But if we go into a drought declaration which, is something that is controlled by the state for our area, then those regulations may change. You may be limited to watering only on certain days. And the best way to find out if you're not familiar with the regulations is to call your water provider and find out what the current status is.
Ayesha: Just to clarify, the water regulation between 10 am and 4 pm is because evaporation is the highest at that time.
Amy: Yes that's right. You lose a lot of water to evaporation at that time of the day.
Ayesha: Another way to conserve water is to recycle grey water. Are there any mandates in place for reusing grey water?
Jennifer: Car washes built after 2001 are required to recycle a minimum of 50 % of their water.
City of Atlanta allows grey water but you have to be permitted for it and it can only be used for flushing your toilet. It's very strict because it can be very dangerous.
Amy does a rain barrel workshop in which she teaches people how to make a rain barrel and harvest rain water. That water can be used for washing your car or watering your garden. I think in places like Australia and other countries that have different water scarcity issues they have that infrastructure set up for water purification within the house. I'm not very well versed on that but from what I know it is all one package. So you have the permitting process in place, an industry standard purification system, people who are installing them are trained and are aware of the rules. It is a whole package but we don’t have that infrastructure here yet.
Amy: On the other end of the spectrum you have areas where you're not allowed to have a rain barrels to collect water or have a cistern in place because you're required to allow that water to flow back through the watershed to recharge the rivers and streams.
Jennifer: It all depends on how you are set up because water rights are a big deal especially out west with agriculture and cattle farming.
Ayesha: So depending on where you live that may define how much water you can collect and reuse?
Amy: Yes, water rights are done differently in different parts of the country. It's a complicated issue but a very interesting one.
Jennifer: It's a very passionate issue - people that have the water and people that need the water.
Amy: Water is life and water is money. Also, when you are conserving water by collecting rain water or reusing grey water it can potentially delay the needs for those capacity upgrades to your system. You can add more people to your area without having to expand or increase the size of your treatment plants. So you can support a larger population.
Ayesha: The Clean Water Act was one of the first major legislations enacted to address water pollution. Can you touch upon that?
Jennifer: I think it's very important. We wouldn't have this job if it wasn't for the Clean Water Act. It was enacted in 1972 because there was a huge need for it. I think the Chattahoochee River is so much cleaner because of that, industry cleaned up, everybody cleaned up because of that. If we did not we would have been in a really bad situation. We're so lucky that we have these rules and regulations because we are getting safe healthy drinking water delivered to our homes and businesses.
While these types of regulations are important we have to understand that there has to be a common denominator between the regulators, the utility companies and the consumers. Everybody needs to come to the table because that is going to generate the best solution. When so many different people and groups are involved you have to come to a reasonable solution for everybody.
Amy: We all share that common responsibility.
Amy: Another important regulation is the Safe Drinking Water Act. The Consumer Confidence Report comes from that. Every water utility company in the country is required to put one out every year to their customers and it basically includes the summary of the results of water testing for the previous year for that system. What was found, in what levels, if there were any permit violations? So that creates transparency and lets your customers know.
Ayesha: Technology is at the forefront of everything. It has allowed us to make significant improvements in water quality and water management. This was especially evident when I toured the Johns Creek Environmental Campus which is a state-of-the-art wastewater management facility. What are some of the new technologies in the pipeline that might become a reality in the near future for individual consumers?
Amy: Eventually technology is going to play a very big role in water conservation. There are some utilities in the country that are starting to implement what we call AMI which is Advance Metering Infrastructure which is almost like a sub metering in different parts of your home and can take readings on a regular basis. For example, when you go into your utility account you can look at it and it'll probably tell you exactly how much energy you used yesterday versus today. But if you look at your water bill it only tells you how much water you used on a monthly basis. With the Advanced Metering Infrastructure they can actually see what you are using in real time. It can help detect leaks in your homes or if you have a spike in your consumption. There are two barriers to that though. One, it is very expensive to implement. It's going to be a while before we see that nationwide and the other is that people have privacy concerns with that kind of data collection. Which is fair. But the benefits of it are pretty high.
Ayesha: And on that optimistic note thank you both for your time and providing these insights into this very complex process of water harvestation, collection, purification and finally releasing it back to our rivers. Thank you for what you do and in ensuring the citizens of Fulton County have clean, safe, drinking water!
Additional Articles And Resources To Explore.
National Geographic:
National Geographic recently launched a public awareness campaign on global plastic water crisis. The articles included below are some that were covered in their June 2018 edition cover story titled - 'Planet or Plastic' .
National Geographic recently launched a public awareness campaign on global plastic water crisis. The articles included below are some that were covered in their June 2018 edition cover story titled - 'Planet or Plastic' .
- Article and short video: How This Whale Got Nearly 20 Pounds of Plastic in Its Stomach
- Article: Fast Facts About Plastic Pollution -
- Article: Microplastics Found In 90 percent Of Table Salt
Did you know, "Shoppers in the United States use almost one [plastic bag] per resident per day.
Shoppers in Denmark use an average of four plastic bags a year"
How many shopping bags do you use in a day/week/month/year?
Shoppers in Denmark use an average of four plastic bags a year"
How many shopping bags do you use in a day/week/month/year?
- BBC Article : The 11 cities most likely to run out of drinking water - like Cape Town
- NPR Article and Short Podcast: Beer, Drinking Water And Fish: Tiny Plastic Is Everywhere
- NPR Article and Short Video: A Massive Floating Boom Is Supposed To Clean Up The Pacific. Can It Work?
- NPR Article: European Parliament Approves Ban On Some Single-Use Plastics, Reduction On Others
The Johns Creek Environmental Campus (Wastewater Management Facility)
The Johns Creek Environmental Campus (JCEC) is a state-of-the-art wastewater management facility for Fulton County in Georgia. The JCEC was built in 2009 and it processes approximately 15 million gallons of wastewater a day making it the largest such facility in the United States. If you would like to learn more about the step by step wastewater purification process click here to read more.
Some suggestions to reduce plastic pollution and to conserve water
Ideas to reduce plastic pollutions:
- Give up single-use straws. Join the "Be Straw Free Campaign".
- Give up single-use plastic bags. Take your own reusable bags for grocery shopping.
Ideas to conserve water:
- Turn off faucets when you brush your teeth, shave, soap your hands or soap dishes.
- Replace lawns with native plants. Native plants are uniquely adapted to water availability in the region. They also provide food and shelter for native wildlife.
I invite you to send in your suggestions on how to reduce plastic pollution and conserve water so I can add them to this list. Thank you in advance for considering to contribute.
Ideas submitted by Zoya S, Texas, USA
Zoya is our young conservationist who contributes regularly to the sumer editions - Conversations on Conservation.
"While I did see myself as water aware, my family and I started to do a few things to make sure we were saving as much water and being mindful of our pollution as possible:
- My mom bought reusable steel straws that are dishwasher safe.
- We have front loading washing machines that conserves water
- I convinced my younger sister not use flushable wipes
- Instead of using paper towels to wipe our hands we all use kitchen towel
- We collect grey water from washing fruits, vegetables and grains to water our plants
- If we drop ice cubes on the floor we use them to water plants as well
- We have air plants that don't need much water
- I'm trying to get out family to be zero-waste, which is a challenge but I'm sure we can do it!"
Who To Support:
Please find listed below organizations working to address and mitigate the water crisis around the globe. I encourage you to take a few minutes to visit their website to pledge your support by making a donation, volunteering your time, sign up for their newsletter and learn about the work they do. Should you wish to make a contribution please send your contributions directly to an organization of your choice.
Water.org
The Nature Conservancy
The United Nations (UN-Water)
charity: water
World Wildlife Fund
Global Water Challenge
The International Water Management Institute,
World Resources Institute
The Stockholm International Water Institute
Please find listed below organizations working to address and mitigate the water crisis around the globe. I encourage you to take a few minutes to visit their website to pledge your support by making a donation, volunteering your time, sign up for their newsletter and learn about the work they do. Should you wish to make a contribution please send your contributions directly to an organization of your choice.
Water.org
The Nature Conservancy
The United Nations (UN-Water)
charity: water
World Wildlife Fund
Global Water Challenge
The International Water Management Institute,
World Resources Institute
The Stockholm International Water Institute