# It's past time to stop shitting in our drinking water **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 10, 2014, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-past-time-to-stop-shitting-in-our-drinking-water/695213 "2014-08-10T04:41:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-past-time-to-stop-shitting-in-our-drinking-water/695213/21 "2014-08-12T00:44:39Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Just a hypothetical: > > what would be the downside to pumping all the coastal cities’ sewage into artificially created wetlands in the California desert? The sewage slowly trickling down to become clean and replenish the groundwater. There are a number of coastal water districts which already injected treated sewage water into their local ground aquifers. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-past-time-to-stop-shitting-in-our-drinking-water/695213/22 "2014-08-12T01:16:56Z")
I don’t mean to single anyone out in the thread, because researching California water policies is time-consuming and confusing (I’m having a lot of difficult with it myself). But… Come on. Ideas like water reclamation or sewage reclamation/recycling or groundwater replenishment are old hat in California. We’ve been building out these systems for decades now and we’ve got plenty of systems in various stages of development. It’s not like California has been sitting around with its thumb up its ass. These systems are costly to build. They take time to build. They require infrastructure build-outs and environmental impact reviews. These are not systems that gets built overnight. And for the state overall, the posters in this thread who are pointing to agriculture as the primary culprit are completely correct. If you’re serious about finding new ways to reduce water usage, then you talk about agriculture. But telling us we should be doing things that we’re already doing seems pretty pointless to me. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-past-time-to-stop-shitting-in-our-drinking-water/695213/23 "2014-08-12T01:46:52Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > There are a number of coastal water districts which already injected treated sewage water into their local ground aquifers. Ignorance fought. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-past-time-to-stop-shitting-in-our-drinking-water/695213/24 "2014-08-12T07:47:08Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > Everything you just posted Its not always obvious what people/states are doing, the difference between California and Texas regarding water policies is astounding, But it is great to know California is on top of things along these lines. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-past-time-to-stop-shitting-in-our-drinking-water/695213/25 "2014-08-12T14:57:21Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I can’t look at the Pacific Ocean and believe we have a water crisis. > > We have an energy issue. I thought that way too, until a recent thread. **Stranger on a Train** pointed out that the downside of desalination (other than the high energy cost) is that you end up with tons of salt that is essentially a worthless waste product. So you have to pump it back in the ocean, which creates localized areas of uber-high salt content, which kills marine life (and possibly changes currents). ---
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2014, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-past-time-to-stop-shitting-in-our-drinking-water/695213/26 "2014-08-16T21:00:41Z")
Flushed water may be wastewater, but it’s not wasted in the sense that it’s not just gone. The water goes to a treatment plant, and then back into the nearest river, where it is available for re-use. So when Sacramento River water is sent south via aqueduct to Southern California, some of it has already been through toilets in Sacramento, Redding, Fresno, etc. Take that, LA. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-past-time-to-stop-shitting-in-our-drinking-water/695213.md?page=1)