The provision of clean water and treating wastewater before discharge into the environment is one of the most significant contributions of environmental engineers to the health of the public. However, treating these waters imposes burdens: environmental emissions associated with generating electricity and manufacturing chemicals required for treatment and economic costs facing rate payers. Understanding these burdens is critical in desigining infrastructure systems and effective regulations.

Evaluating the Environmental Impacts of Water Treatment

The goal of drinking water and wastewater treatment is to reduce human health risks from chemical, radiological, or biological contaminants. However, treating this water involves using electricity to drive processes or chemical reagents - producing either of which leads to air emissions that reduce the overall health benefits of that water treatment. The thrust of this work quantifies the risk-risk tradeoffs between water and air pollution and evaluates the impact of one way to reduce these health, environment, and climate damages.

Papers Published

Gingerich, D.B.; Mauter, M.S., Air Emission Benefits of Biogas Electricity Generation at Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants, Environmental Science & Technology, 2018, 52(3) 1633-1643. Journal Link

Gingerich, D.B.; Mauter, M.S., Air Emissions Damages from Municipal Drinking Water Treatment Under Current and Proposed Regulatory Standards, Environmental Science & Technology, 2017, 51(18), 10299-10306. Journal Link

Economic Equity and the Affordability of Drinking Water Regulations

The affordability of drinking water regulations was brought up in the initial Congressional debate over the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act and became a central piece of the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments. The metrics developed by the EPA faced an early test in efforts to tighten regulations around Arsenic in drinking water based around technologies that were potentially far too expensive for ratepayers in small systems to afford. The thrust of this work looks at what it means for a regulation to be unaffordable by developing and applying several potential metrics for an affordability determination.

Paper Published

Gingerich, D.B.; Aditi, A., Barnett, M., Is the Arsenic Rule Affordable? Journal American Water Works Association, 2017, 109(9), E381-E392. Open Access Journal Link