At the International Ozone Association meeting in Boston a couple of months back, Frederick Laskey, who is the executive director of the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority (MWRA) gave one of the keynote addresses. MWRA supplies 220 MGD of drinking water and treats 350 MGD of wastewater. Boston once had, or at least what was called, the dirties harbor in America.
MWRA invested $3.8 billion to improve water quality in the harbor and is on track to have the cleanest harbor beach in America by 2011. MWRA’s Carrol Drinking water plant employs ozone water treatment for taste and odor control and produces some of the best tasting water in the US. In addition, the water is free of pharmaceutical products found in other drinking water systems. Further improvements are being planned to meet the next generation of regulations such as the EPA’s LT2 standards.
This is great progress, but it did not come without some cost. Prior to the capital spenidng program, a Bostonian household paid $100/year for water, now they pay closer to $1,000/year. If we assume that the average person uses 150 gallons/day of water and the average household has 2.5 people, the cost per $1,000 gallons is about $7.50. Not an unreasonable price for such an important commodity.