In a hygienically hair-raising endeavour, a Texan town is set to use recycled urine in its water supply after the state’s third worst drought in recorded history has humbled its historically tough citizens.
Aptly named ‘Big Springs’, the town of 27,000 residents is already experiencing a 20% cutback on water usage, as low reservoir levels and blazing hot temperatures menace the region.
Colorado River Municipal Water District Manager, John Grant, says “we’re taking treated effluent (wastewater) normally discharged into a creek, and blending it with (drinking) water”.
While he claims this ‘new system’ accelerates and purifies what normally occurs with the flow of wastewater through wetlands anyway, many remain discombobulated and gut-wrenchingly horrified at the proposal.
Terri Telchik, worker at the city manager’s office in Big Springs, says “when you talk about toilet-to-tank (water) it makes a lot of people nervous and grossed out”.
However, Texans may have to readjust their drinking standards, as the Department of Agriculture Drought Monitor map currently shows 75% of the state is in “exceptional” drought stages, with West Texas rainfall down 90% on levels typical for this time of year.
While the media has pointed out that NASA currently filters urine directly for both drinking and cooking, Texans are reminding authorities they are not “spaced out astronauts”, but rather descendants of decent desert-dwellers that typically abstain from drinking their comrade’s piss.
However, Big Springs resident, Hank Merchant, says drinking other people’s recycled urine could be the least of our concerns.
He says if the news gets out, idiots like Bear Grylls from Man vs. Wild might think they’re being upstaged, and could descend on the community in a frenzy of despicable excrement recycling unlike any the world has known.
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