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The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality recently put rules into place promoting the use of direct potable reuse treatment systems, marking the beginning of an effort to provide more options for communities facing problems with droughts and water shortages. This photo from TPO magazine in 2016 shows one of the very few such systems operating in the nation: the Cypress Water Treatment Plant in Wichita Falls, Texas. (Photo By Olivia Ogren-Hrejsa)
Until the beginning of this year, direct potable reuse in Arizona was unequivocally banned.
“There was a flat-out prohibition against using direct potable reuse. At the time, the standards weren’t there, and the technology wasn’t there. Thanks to pilot projects in other...