 | Vol. 6 No. 4 Spring 1999 |
| A Newsletter About New Jersey's Water Quality Programs |
| State Drought Spurs Re-Use of Wastewater |
 |
Terry Pilawski,
Jim Grob, |
Nonpoint Pollution Control
Point Source Permitting Region 2 |
Have you ever wanted to use effluent to water the lawn at your treatment plant? Or maybe you thought about spraying effluent instead of potable water on a golf course. With the recent drought conditions, more and more people are thinking of new uses for highly treated wastewater.
When developing a wastewater re-use plan, several issues must be examined. For example, spray irrigation at a golf course would require a large amount of effluent, but only during the warmer months of the year when potable water demands are high. For this type of activity, the following should be considered:
- Avoid polluting ground water with nitrogen. This can be prevented by calculating the nutrient needs of the "crop," in this case the grass at the golf course.
- Determine the volume of effluent permitted to be sprayed. This can be determined by evaluating the nutrient needs of the crop and the nutrient concentration of the effluent.
- Assess possible impacts on human health. A golf course has unlimited public access, which would require the discharge of highly treated effluent, especially for fecal coliform.
The discharge of effluent directly into or onto the ground surface requires a NJPDES permit; however, the division encourages the beneficial re-use of effluent normally discharged to surface or ground water and is developing permit conditions to address this use. These conditions could be incorporated into existing NJPDES permits so that a permit modification would not be required for each proposed re-use site.
If you are interested in pursuing the beneficial re-use of effluent, please contact either the Bureau of Nonpoint Pollution Control at (609) 292-0407, or the Bureaus of Point Source Permitting - Region 1 at (609) 633-3869 and Region 2 at (609) 292-4860.
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Last revision Friday, March 19, 1999