People need to drink a lot more recycled wastewater

But if you can recycle water on a large scale, you have a powerful hedge against drought. “It’s an extremely reliable supply that has access to this wastewater stream, cleans it and then uses it to offset the need for other supplies,” said Michael Kiparski, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at UC Berkeley. .

Indeed, water recycling is an investment. As water becomes scarcer in the West, it also becomes more expensive. The price of water imported from San Diego has tripled in the last 15 years. This can be a powerful factor for voters when it comes to supporting water recycling projects. “People’s bills are also extremely motivating, aren’t they?” Gloria asks. “When you explain to them that if we can control this resource ourselves – that we don’t have to rely on water managers north of us, or multilateral agreements, water transfer agreements with other counties – when we can control it ourselves, there is some greater ability to control costs. ”

Historically, however, politicians have had to contend with the “factor” of recycled water. People may not believe him, even though he is amazingly clean. (I’ve tried it before – it was refreshing and didn’t kill me.) But Gloria points out that if your community draws water from Colorado or another river, and you’re downstream from other municipalities, you do the same, you’re already drinking recycled water. “Everyone else took this water, used it, threw it back and it’s on its way here,” says Gloria. “So if you think you’re no longer involved in some form of water reuse, you’re probably confused.”

But as with picking stocks, it is safer to hedge your bet with a diverse portfolio of resources instead of having one asset. Any city that deals with a river or lake as the only source of water wants problems because the more frequent and intense droughts that come with climate change will bring instability to the market on a large scale. “I think water is our biggest natural challenge right now,” said Adrian Borza, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego who studies how aquifers store water. Drought is a safer short-term risk to the West than other hazards that urban planners must consider, such as earthquakes. “It’s no longer ‘Oh, we’ll get that size 7’ on the San Andreas Fault.” This will happen sometime, but definitely we will face the challenges of water scarcity. “

So cities in Southern California are getting creative in diversifying their portfolios. The Carlsbad desalination plant treats seawater in the same way as the recycling target – by passing it through membranes. It provides San Diego County with 50 million gallons of fresh water a day. In Los Angeles, 150 acres of Tujunga Spreads Grounds act like a giant sponge, absorbing rainwater, which then seeps into the aquifer below. Everywhere in Los Angeles, specially designed green spaces along roadsides do the same by collecting water in underground reservoirs.