Orange County: Wastewater Reuse Leader

What would you say to the idea of drinking a tall, cool glass of wastewater? On the face of it, it sounds, well, yucky. But it turns out you've probably been drinking it all along. There's good technology now for extracting impurities and making even the dirtiest water potable. And some water districts around the country are taking this technology to scale. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak with Mike Markus, the General Manager of the Orange County, California Water District. Orange County's practices may represent the high water-mark for the re-use of H2O. Markus and host Alex Wise discuss the innovative technology the district uses to clean its wastewater, examine the costs compared to other alternatives like desalination, and talk about his team's efforts to overcome common misperceptions about turning wastewater into clean drinking water.