Wastewater Works

Florida has developed a safe and healthy way to keep its crops, like the orange grove above, watered by reclaiming this wastewater. This is a response to environmental concerns about this wastewater polluting surface waters caused many communities.

The state's population grew by more than five-and-a-half times from 1950 to 2000 according to the 1997 U.S. Census, leading to a rise in municipal waste. Studies confirm that the amount of wastewater generated by cities in Florida has increased more than fivefold since 1950.

According to a 2005 report by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, there are currently 440 "reclaimed water reuse systems" in Florida, irrigating thousands of acres of golf courses, public land, and residential landscapes with 2,385 million liters of reclaimed water per day. Reclaimed wastewater is also being used to irrigate some of Florida's world-renowned citrus orchards. Because yearly rainfall in Florida is seasonal, with 75 percent of annual rainfall usually occurring between June and September, citrus growers rely on supplemental irrigation for healthy citrus crops.

A yearly monitoring project, which began in the 1990s and ended in 2004, concluded that using reclaimed water for irrigation of citrus orchards showed few detrimental effects on the orchards. Long-term citrus irrigation with high-quality reclaimed water on well-drained sandy soils did not significantly reduce tree viability or yield and required relatively little adjustment in crop production practices: good news for the environment and citrus producers alike.

The study is published in the April issue of HortScience.

-- LiveScience Staff

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