The California State Water Resources Control Board is tentatively planning a vote next week to approve a landmark water regulation that would turn sewage into drinking water across California.
The rules would allow “toilet to tap,” converting water from toilet and shower drains into drinking water.
The project is an effort to tackle climate change and the problem of water droughts .
Currently, the sewage water gets treated and released into oceans, rivers, water parks, or used to irrigate fields in California.
The plan would take the wastewater and have it treated at a higher level and then send it back into the main water supply over the course of hours to days.
Other places in the world, such as Singapore and Namibia, use this method. However, this year, it was reported that Namibia is facing a water contamination crisis and the water is “not fit for human consumption.” Many communities in the country fear outbreaks of waterborne diseases.
Rarely has the United States’s wastewater gone directly into the drinking water supply, which makes this move in California a landmark regulation.
If approved, California sanitation districts hope to start construction in 2025 and begin delivering water by 2032.
On Tuesday night, Fox News host Laura Ingraham, alongside Fox News radio host Jimmy Failla mocked California for recycling “poop water.”
“This is disgusting. This is gross. But knowing California, Gavin Newsom will find a way to spin this into the positive,” Failla said.
Failla joked in a voice pretending to be Newsom, “‘California has the best tap water! And the number two!'”
“Liberals will be like, ‘That’s amazing,’ and Republicans will throw up because we get what they are doing here,” he added.
