November 5, 2018
Washington Update
WateReuse Leads Stakeholders in Urging $250 Million Reauthorization for Title XVI-WINN
WateReuse Association Offers Support to Army Corps of Engineers on New Water Reuse Provisions
EPA Invites Water Recycling Projects to Apply for WIFIA Loans
The U.S Environmental Protection Agency invited three WateReuse Association members – the City of Los Angeles, Inland Empire Utilities Agency (CA), and Pinellas County Utilities (FL) – to apply for Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loans. Together, the three agencies will receive WIFIA loans of approximately $336 million to help finance water recycling infrastructure. EPA received 62 letters of interest from both public and private entities in response to the 2018 WIFIA Notice of Funding Availability After a statutorily required review process, 39 prospective borrowers’ projects were selected to submit applications for loans. In total, the selected borrowers will receive WIFIA loans of up to $5 billion to help finance over $10 billion in water infrastructure investments and create up to 155,000 jobs.
State Updates and Member Profiles
Welcome New Member!
The WateReuse Association welcomes the following new member:
Arizona: Peoria Moves Forward with Potable Reuse
WateReuse Association member the City of Peoria recently greenlit a $2.2 million project to recharge its groundwater aquifers with purified water. The project is designed to support the water supply in an area threatened by drought, rising demand, and climate change. Although new rules in Arizona would allow Peoria to send purified water directly to the drinking water treatment plant, the community decided to replenish the aquifers instead. Read More.
Colorado: WateReuse Colorado Releases Technical Memorandums on DPR
WateReuse Colorado released three technical memorandums from the “Advancing Direct Potable Reuse to Optimize Water Supplies and Meet Future Demands” project developed to advance direct potable reuse (DPR) in Colorado. The project assembled stakeholders including regulators, utility providers, consultants, and advocacy groups to address the regulatory, public outreach and perception, and technical hurdles that Colorado will face when implementing DPR. The technical memorandums on each topic are available in the links below, as well as an executive summary with an overview of the project.
- TM1: Regulatory Development
- TM2: Communications and Outreach Plan
- TM3: Treatment Train Planning Tools and Case Studies
- Executive Summary
Florida: Altamonte Springs Purifying Water from Sewers, Storms
WateReuse Association member the City of Altamonte Springs is emerging as a leader in advancing water purification with its pureAlta demonstration project that is turning 30 million gallons of wastewater and stormwater into drinking water each day. The project’s treatment train produces water that meets or exceeds drinking water standards, without the use of a traditional reverse osmosis step that can be particularly costly for inland communities that cannot easily dispose of the leftover salty concentrate. The project also serves as a model for the Florida Potable Reuse Commission as it develops a regulatory framework for potable reuse in Florida. Read More.
Online Member Resources
Flyer Illustrates Economic Value of Recycled Water
Did you know that 70% of the world’s internet traffic moves through servers in Loudoun County, VA that are cooled with recycled water? Or that Orange Country, CA produces enough purified water to meet the drinking water needs of more than 850,000 people? View and share Water Reuse: Transforming Water, Sustaining Our Future, a two page flyer that explains the benefits of water reuse on one side and presents infographics illustrating the economic value of recycled water for communities across the country on the other side. Visit the WateReuse website to view other public awareness resources, including videos, fact sheets, and reports.
Research Update
Water Research Foundation Seeks Proposals for Water Reuse Research
Conferences and Events
Webcast: Learn about the New Recycled Water User Network
Are you interested in recognizing recycled water customers as community water stewards or strengthening your marketing to potential new customers? Please join us for a webcast on Thursday, November 15 at 2 pm EST to learn about a new resource for WateReuse members and a new membership program for industrial and commercial users of recycled water called the Recycled Water User Network™. The network provides a member-only platform for users of recycled water, including customers of water utilities and organizations that recycle water onsite, and is designed to be a resource for members of the WateReuse Association to market and provide support to current and potential customers of recycled water, while building public acceptance of recycled water in your community. The network provides businesses, governments and nonprofits that use recycled water the opportunity to receive a green designation, Water StarTM and to access information and resources on recycled water. Members of the network would also receive access to the Association’s membership benefits, including access to monthly webcasts, weekly newsletter, and discounts on conference registration fees. To learn more about how your utility can take advantage of the Recycled Water User Network, register today for the webcast.
Webcast: Reducing the Cost of Concentrate Disposal: Using a Novel Hybrid NF-RO to Enhance Sodium Chloride Removal
Concentrate disposal is a major cost for desalting operations, and for many water-recycling applications only partial desalting is needed, often targeting sodium chloride specifically. Please join us on Wednesday, November 14 at 2 p.m. EST to learn about a pilot study that was conducted to demonstrate the viability of a two-pass system, combining an NF pass with a second RO pass and blending the NF concentrate with the RO permeate. Findings indicate that sodium chloride can be preferentially removed from the recycled water, chemical and power consumption can be reduced when operated at system recoveries comparable to typical RO systems, and much higher recoveries are achievable with modest increases in power and chemical usage. Register Now!
Upcoming Events

8:00 am PT | 11 am ET | 5:00 pm CET (1 hour 30 minutes)
WateReuse Members: Free; Others: $49
PDHs: 1.5
Germany’s Approach to Water Reuse for Agricultural and Landscape Irrigation
Despite Germany’s temperate climate and history of adequate water resources, the country is experiencing droughts and extreme weather trends as a result of climate change. Germany’s increasing interest in employing water reuse for agricultural and landscape irrigation can serve as a model for other temperate regions facing these trends.
Join us for this 90-minute webcast covering the full timeline of reuse in Germany, including reuse initiatives which have existed for decades, future outlooks for reuse in Germany, and the recent European Water Reuse Regulation (2020/741) which went into effect in June 2023. Our panel of research and utility experts will also present ongoing research related to non-potable reuse of municipal wastewater for agricultural and landscape irrigation, which is part of the German BMBF Water Technologies: Reuse (WavE) funding program.
Moderator:
- Dr. Veronika Zhiteneva, Project Manager, Kompetenzzentrum Wasser Berlin
Speakers:
- Dr. Christina Jungfer, Project Manager, DECHEMA
- Prof. Dr. Jörg E. Drewes, Chair of Urban Water Systems Engineering, Technical University of Munich
- Markus Büttner, Environmental Engineer, Stadtentwässerung SCHWEINFURT
- Prof. Dr. Thomas Wintgens, Chair of Urban Water Management and Institute of Environemtnal Engineering, RWTH Aachen University
- Prof. Dr. Thomas Dockhorn, Director, Institute of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Braunschweig
- Prof Dr. Aki S. Ruhl, German Environment Agency, Technical University of Berlin
Our next Bimonthly Member Meeting will be held in-person on Tuesday, October 10th at Rowland Water District, 3021 Fullerton Road, Rowland Heights, CA 91748. Lunch will begin at 11:00 a.m., and the formal meeting will begin at 11:30 a.m. There will also be an option to participate in the meeting virtually. A Zoom meeting registration link will be sent out with the agenda about one week prior.
Whether you plan to attend in person or via Zoom, please RSVP by Friday, October 6th by filling out the form at this link: https://forms.office.com/r/itWNqv2xh9. Please indicate if you plan on joining for lunch as well as the formal meeting so that we may get an accurate count. This meeting will have a capacity limit of 35 people.

11:00 am PT | 2 pm ET (1 hour)
WateReuse Members: Free; Others: $49
PDHs: 1
High-recovery desalination processes offer the benefit of increasing water recovery, generally with increasing cost and complexity. Reverse osmosis and electrodialysis desalination processes will be reviewed and compared with respect to high-recovery water reuse applications.
Moderator:
Erin Young, R.G.
Hydrogeologist | Water Resources Manager
City of Flagstaff Water Services
eyoung@flagstaffaz.gov | w: (928) 213-2405
Presenter:
Shane Walker, Ph.D., P.E.
Director, Water Resources Center
Professor, Civil, Environmental, & Construction Engineering
Texas Tech University
806-834-0823
Please join the Emerging Professionals Committee for a tour of MWD’s Weymouth Water Treatment Plant on November 1, 2023, from 10 am – 12 pm! Tour capacity is limited to 30 people so please RSVP ASAP to reserve your spot at the link here: https://forms.gle/gxGhtcBLVwWMTG1F7
Constructed in 1941, the Weymouth Water Treatment Plant is the first water treatment plant constructed by the MWD and now has a treatment capacity of 520 million gallons per day! Please check out the fact sheet here for more information: water-treatment-plants-fact-sheet-final_web.pdf (mwdh2o.com)
Event Address: 700 Moreno Ave, La Verne, CA 91750
Parking is available on site.
Following the tour, anyone who is hungry is open to join us at In-N-Out Burger:
Restaurant Address: 2098 Foothill Blvd, La Verne, CA 91750
For more information, please contact Seto Cherchian at 714.944.4726 or