ON-SITE WASTEWATER: A CRITICAL PART OF A SUSTAINABLE & INTEGRATED WATER INFRASTRUCTURE (original) (raw)

Abstract

Water plays such a vital role in everyday life that we cannot afford to ignore aging infrastructure, changing sources, status quo operations, complex sociological issues, and their interactions. On-site wastewater systems have been and will remain an important part of our nation's water infrastructure, but they have yet to be considered as an integral part of the " main stream " centralized water and sewer infrastructure. On-site wastewater systems, when responsibly managed, offer a sustainable alternative to centralized systems and allow for cost-effective water reuse compared to centralized systems. Recent drought and flood conditions across the country have increased awareness to the risks and limitations of a centralized water infrastructure and created interest in developing alternative options. A team of researchers and engineers at Texas A&M AgriLife asked the question-what constitutes a " sustainable " water infrastructure? Answering this question is the goal of a long-term research project entitled the Sustainable and integrated Water infrastructure (SiWi™) program. This paper gives details on SiWi, outlines the role on-site wastewater systems play in SiWi, and presents policy options for making current and future on-site wastewater systems an integral part of SiWi. The paper also discusses software under development that will assist in evaluation of infrastructure alternatives (e.g., centralized versus distributed, single use versus reuse of available water, use of rain/storm water harvesting and desalination to supplement surface and groundwater sources, etc.) allowing stakeholders to analyze large amounts of data and make critical multi-objective decisions. The resulting " SiWi index " of a proposed water infrastructure project will provide stakeholders a better understanding of their options and lead to informed decision making. Finally, the paper reports on an ambitious project to develop the first SiWi demonstration on the new Texas A&M RELLIS Campus located in Bryan, Texas.

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References (6)

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