California has water shortage for years.

Surface and Ground water, such as the Colorado River which supplies drinking water for 25 million people in Socal and groundwater reservoirs in Central Valley. With advances in analytical detection techniques over the past decade, several classes of previously non-detectable organic compounds usually in the part-per-trillion range have been identified in the environment. Water in California is a common resouces (?) note how water originates, used upstream, how many dependent and who?. Individual interests: In agricultural settings, producers apply excessive Phosphorus and Nitrogen Antibiotics from manure runoff to attain high crop yields. Max productivity. In urban, home owners to maintain landscape beauty. Inappropriate disposal of drugs. Toilet / sewage disposal is the most convenient and time-saving. Collective interests: Protect quality of surface & ground water, as well as the marine ecosystem, and produce as much as food in an environmentally sustainable way. Conflict: Rivers and lakes are not owned. Nutrients runoff and soil leaching enter water. When no one would add extra cost to prevent N leak and actually reduce N use, why should I? Algae boom (eutrophication) -> o2 depletion destroy biodiversity. Drinking water to all is threatened. What can be done in Urban settings What chemicals? Drugs/Shampoo Personal care: ingredients or preservatives in cosmetics, toiletries or fragrances, nitro musks known for persistence and adverse effects in environment Sources: Pharmaceutical industries, medical facilities, household inappropriate disposal through toilet, human excreta. How much is it? The amount of pesticides used each year How does it get into water supply? Independent of the sources, PAC pass intact through conventional sewage treatment facilities. Indeed, the presence of drugs in sewage, waterways, lakes and even aquifers are well documented in the literature. This suggests
Herman Bouwer of the U.S. Agricultural Research Service: Clofibric acid, passed through treatment plant in Phoenix, are found in groundwater near the plant, suggested possibility of other drugs. Thomas A. Ternes, a chemist in Wiesbaden, Germany: Mid 1990s, presence of drugs in sewage, treated water and rivers: found lowering drugs, antibiotics, analgesics, antiseptics, beta-blocker heart drugs, residues of drugs for controlling epilepsy as well as drugs serving as contrast agents for diagnostic X rays. Chris Metcalfe of Trent University in Ontario found drugs at higher levers than Ternes. http://ag.arizona.edu/azwater/awr/july00/feature1.htm

Problem: Low concentration but constant dosage, great variability among drugs, health effects are long-term not well known. Effects of drugs on aquatic organisms are complicated (ex antidepressants alters sperm levels and spawning patterns in marine life) and possibly increase the exposure/effects risks to nontarget organisms (the release of antibiotics into waterways by Environmental Health Perspectives Environmental Health Perspectives Ternes)

Pharmaceuticals were, in general, removed to a greater extent by the MBR integrated system than during the CAS process. Existing facility upgrade/costs? Need: upgrading of existing wastewater-treatment facilities and implementation of new technologies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/us/27conserve.html?ref=water

From Sewage, Added Water for Drinking Instead it will be injected underground, with half of it helping to form a barrier against seawater intruding on groundwater sources and the other half gradually filtering into aquifers that supply 2.3 million people, about three-quarters of the county. The recycling project will produce much more potable water and at a higher quality than did the mid-1970s-era plant it replaces. Technical Problem
1. Most pharmaceutical substances are biologically active and hydrophilic and persistent and structurally complex. Their metabolized form in excretra is still persistent and resistant to biological degradation. 2. Variable wastewater composition and fluctuations in pollutant concentrations cannot be treated by conventional treatment plants. 3. Drug

Oxidation: high dose of ozone requires high energy uses. The most promising technique is reverse osmosis, is energy intensive, water-intensive, expensive due to small required membrane size. In fact, for a facility, to install RO and advanced oxidation post additoal costs of 500 to 600 million, and an annual operating and maintenance costs of 20 to 25 millions per year, more than double than conventional facilies https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:XhKj4q4xcGUJ:www.tucsonpimawaterstudy.co m/Documents/pharmaceutical%2520white%2520papr.pdf+drawback+of+reverse+osmosis+ppcp s&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjFY-bfJWMsAzTQhg5_A5MrS_UNJPm_ixcmeNINcskvbv5VQWB61DKY2cnCza1ldwj2O5XcrKEIJ2Qmi3bgJnFxYWbTGtFcVRWx2hQUOQpEw7 WMv0EWC-MTYOGOyZjHMgQOdz&sig=AHIEtbRSQ3Ar4NlPQ7mQq4Z4cws_3mq9-w