Quantitative microbial risk assessment of North Carolina reclaimed water for potable reuse

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

As water scarcity issues become more common, the use of treated wastewater as a drinking water source presents an opportunity to meet growing water demands. Many reuse projects are primarily focused on agricultural use; however, there is growing interest in potable reuse schemes. In particular, the state of North Carolina has proposed new potable reuse guidelines allowing for potable reuse of tertiary‐treated, dual‐disinfected reclaimed water when combined with surface source waters at a ratio of up to 20%, followed by 5‐day storage and then conventional drinking water treatment. As microbial risks are still a concern in these waters, this study presents a quantitative microbial risk assessment to assess the additional disease burden from these wastewater reuse guidelines. On the basis of the analysis presented here, the reclaimed water produced in North Carolina does not meet acceptable public health risk levels. To reach these goals, North Carolina wastewater reclamation plants may need to further increase and optimize existing treatment trains to achieve greater log 10 reductions.