One also needs to be familiar with the development and pass-through of multi-antibiotic resistant organisms, otherwise this public health risk may be missed.

Interesting...

Omar, Thanks for the interest. I'm not attached to, nor is this an academically driven project. If you want to become involved in projects that are more academically related, I would suggest you contact those who were involved in the following: Article Reclaimed water as a reservoir of antibiotic resistance gene...

This is a “real-world” case study. In this instance, we have a small avocado and citrus farm (35 acres) situated on the sedimentary gravels of the Santa Clara River drainage in Southern California. Immediately up gradient of this farm there is the discharge to percolation ponds of effluent from the adjacent city’s municipal sewer plant. The effluent moves, down into the underlying gravels, thence down-gradient and under and into adjacent the farm’s property. The effluent’s chloride levels being high, are thus affecting the ground water supply from which the farm’s wells pull irrigation water for the orchards. The high chloride levels are starting to adversely impact the orchard, hence the production. All this was predicted prior to the construction of the new sewer plant. Unfortunately, although predicted, neither the city nor the regulatory arm of the state acknowledged this eventuality or considered mitigation.

Now that the reality of the damage to the farm is clearly apparent, there is bureaucratic foot-dragging. The objective of the study is to get the city and regulatory agency to fully appreciate the damage, to come up with mitigating solutions, and also to accept the reality that the effluent, in addition to high salt, is carrying high levels of antibiotic resistant bacteria and their genes. The latter recalcitrant to treatment by the existing sewer plant’s technology. Thus, we have numerous issues to deal with to correct the situation, some of which may be serious public health issues. Part of the problem is bureaucratic, thus the issue steps into the realm of political economy and bureaucratic capture, part is technical.

The second part can be solved with appropriate technology. The high salts are driven mainly by the city resident’s use of salt-regenerating water softeners. The technical answer, in part, may be to use a pellet reactor at the fresh water well-field intake and treatment of drinking water to obviate the need for individual in-home water softeners, thus reducing chloride flow from the city to the sewer plant. This would need political will on the city’s part, although the law is there. Thus, again a real world issue of political economy. Then, there would be the need to deal with the generation and flow-through of the various pathogens that are associated with currently designed sewer plants. There are designs out there that remove the solids before digestion, so that the digestion is working on a less concentrated material. This would help obviate the sending into solution many of the contaminants of emerging concern by their removal with the solids. The dewatered solids can be run through a fluid bed and converted to a syngas, usable as fuel. The conversion to a syngas produces about the same BTU as natural gas.

As can be seen from the above, we have an example from the real world and the answers are both technical and political.

Following

Valuable contribution

Bimala----- As we get the plans for this plant, I will attempt to get you a copy. This is a pro-bono review, none of us are getting paid. You are certainly welcome to review and comment and your inputs would be welcomed. There is no schedule as we are doing this as we can.

Cheers---------Edo

good question and interesting responses and contributions by each contributor