AWWA JAW57691

Combined central treatment and distribution arerelatively recent phenomena, having only becomestandard in the last century or so. Given that <1%of treated water is actually ingested, the concept oftreating all of the water in a system to optimal drinkingwater specifications is becoming more impractical, especiallyin the face of increasingly stringent regulations,high costs, water quality deterioration during distribution,and reduced access to high-quality source water.The Safe Drinking Water Act has created specialopportunities for small systems to use decentralizedcompliance through point-of-use (POU) and point-of-entry(POE) techniques to provide supplemental treatmentfor part of the delivered piped water. Two-tierwater systems that include the use of POU or POEdevices or possibly even bottled water provide a feasibleand cost-effective means of delivering safe water toconsumers. Community-managed decentralized strategiesalso offer small systems the opportunity to achievesafer, higher-quality drinking water than these communitiesmight otherwise have had, more quickly and atreasonable costs.These alternative approaches create new logistic,management, compliance, monitoring, and regulatoryoversight issues, but these are solvable. Most of theprinciples supporting decentralized solutions for smallsystems are also applicable to providing community-managed"beverage-quality" drinking water in muchlarger systems. For all water providers, decentralizedand centralized treatment combinations represent abetter use of diminishing water resources and limitedfinances. Includes 19 references, table.

Product Details

Edition:

Vol. 95 - No. 3

Published:

03/01/2003

Number of Pages:

8

File Size:

1 file , 1.2 MB