Australia is far away, but faces many core water industry challenges – climate change, urbanisation, poor waterway health, political leadership changes, cost of living pressure – which impact the ability to supply basic services, and build trusting relationships with customers and community. Australia keeps an eye on local and world developments; this is a snapshot of what we see on the horizon.

Direct Potable Reuse is an emerging strategy gaining interest in the U.S. as a water supply alternative. Federal regulations do not exist in the U.S. for potable reuse, but are developed by states. This presentation will focus on the use of stakeholder processes to develop technically and scientifically sound DPR regulatory frameworks and will review the specific criteria in the frameworks.

At the direction of the California Legislature, the California State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) formed an Expert Panel to review surface water augmentation for potable reuse regulations and to consider the feasibility of developing uniform regulations for direct potable reuse (DPR). The Expert Panel reviewed potable reuse regulations for surface water augmentation in 2016 and developed an in-depth review of direct potable reuse (DPR) regulations in 2017. Because of the industry’s lack of experience with DPR, a number of research needs were identified in the State Board’s DPR study. The Water Research Foundation (WRF) is conducting the investigations on behalf of the State Board.

In addition, the California Assembly Bill 574 (AB 574) was passed, requiring the State Board to develop regulations for two forms of DPR: raw water augmentation (the introduction of advanced treated water upstream of a drinking water treatment plant) and treated drinking water augmentation (the introduction of advanced treated water directly into the distribution system). AB 574 mandates the development of raw water augmentation regulations by December 31, 2023.

The purpose of this presentation is to provide an update on the DPR regulatory process and a review of the technical approach and status for each of the priority research topics as they relate to assisting the State of California develop DPR regulations by 2023.

A project was undertaken to draw up a priority list of emerging contaminants of concern in reclaimed potable water in South Africa, and indicative removal potential of these chemicals by two water reclamation plants and three municipal wastewater treatment plants. The paper will present the importance of applying the results in the implementation of water reuse schemes.

Increased aspiration towards resource recovery from wastewater will potential result in a switch from an aerobic to an anaerobic MBR enabling energy and nutrient recovery alongside water reuse. The effluent profiles are different and so poses the question are the likely disinfection by products formed different?