THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 9, 1994 TAG: 9408090400
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
Eyeing a potentially vast new source of water for Hampton Roads, state and local officials are weighing a plan to irrigate 16 acres at Old Dominion University using treated water from a nearby sewage plant.
To stay wet even in parched times, officials have begun to float the idea of water ``reuse.'' A portion of the region's treated wastewater could be used to feed grasses and plants, keep golf links green and help manufacturers hold down industrial costs.
Currently, the Hampton Roads Sanitation District processes some 150 million gallons of sewage effluent a day - more than double, for example, the maximum projected flow of drinking water through Virginia Beach's proposed Lake Gaston pipeline.
The ODU project, which would use effluent to irrigate 16 campus acres at Powhatan Field, is under consideration by the state Health Department, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, the city of Norfolk and the Hampton Roads Sanitation District.
If approved, the project could begin as early as next summer. If successful, the venture could spread campuswide in the next two years.
``The whole issue of potential uses for treated water is being explored,'' said Robert F. Jackson Jr., a water resources development manager with the Tidewater regional office of the Department of Environmental Quality. ``You've got two things working: improvements in technology and regulatory changes protecting the Chesapeake Bay.''
Over the past decade, treatment process improvements and equipment upgrades in the sanitation district's nine plants have reduced levels of pollutants and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, experts said.
Ten years ago, a proposal to use treated wastewater to suppress coal dust at Norfolk Southern Corp.'s Lambert's Point Docks was turned aside because of fears of public health risks: microorganisms that, when inhaled by workers, could cause disease and infections.
Since then, communities in arid or highly developed regions of the country have begun using cleaner wastewater to stretch otherwise tight water supplies. In the Tampa Bay region of Florida, for example, effluent routinely flows to lawns and golf courses.
Of the 300 million gallons a day treated by the Southwest Florida Water Management District, a little more than a quarter, or 80 million gallons a day, is reused.
Early last year, developers approached Isle of Wight County officials to tout a 100-acre-plus planned community in the Newport District of the county that would include an 18-hole golf course. The course would be irrigated with treated wastewater.
Despite initial discussions, the developers have yet to get back in touch with county officials, said David Murphy, the county's director of public utilities.
``If (reuse) could work, it would be beneficial in several respects,'' he said. ``The entire southeastern Virginia area is in a crunch. There's not enough surface water and groundwater to go around. The aquifers are being stretched and the quantity just isn't there.''
Virginia locales, however, experience little sense of urgency in developing reuse strategies and plans. The state, although occasionally plagued by dry spells, rarely suffers through protracted periods without rain.
``We're water rich. We just get too much rain,'' said Daniel B. Horne, engineering field director for the Virginia Department of Health's Office of Water Programs. ``There's not a lot of wastewater reuse in Virginia. We don't need to rely on wastewater for irrigation.''
Successful projects will have to be well designed, make economic sense and be part of a larger, integrated water plan.
``Water is a sensitive subject,'' said James R. Borberg, Hampton Roads Sanitation District general manager. ``We don't want to get people's hopes up, to say `this is the salvation.' I don't think reuse is.'' ILLUSTRATION: ELSEWHERE...
In central Florida, sewage effluent is used to irrigate golf
courses, which can require as much as a million gallons of water a
day.
Fairfax County, Va., and Reno, Nev., add recycled water - even
cleaner than treated sewage effluent - to their drinking water
supplies.
El Paso, Texas, since the mid-1980s, has been pumping recycled water
into an underground aquifer from which it draws water for drinking.
KEYWORDS: OLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY WATER
by CNB