Stone Brewing Co. in San Diego, California, has announced a new craft beer made of treated wastewater called Full Circle Pale Ale.

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer told the Times of San Diego the beer is fantastic. “There’s no better way to highlight the purity of this water.”

The brewers made five barrels of the beer using water from San Diego’s Pure Water Facility in an effort to bring attention to the need to recycle wastewater.

Full Circle Pale Ale isn’t available commercially yet, although the company said it hopes to sell it soon.

Source: The Wichita Eagle

Treatment Company President Charged With Data Falsification

A private wastewater treatment company president in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, has been charged with falsifying wastewater samples and test results at three condo facilities.

Kent Oldfield, president of SRA Inc. and New England Engineering Group, is accused of submitting dozens of false reports to the state DEP between March 2013 and April 2015 to cover up violations.

“The public relies on certified operators like the defendant to ensure that harmful pollutants are removed from wastewater discharged directly into the ground in our communities,” said Attorney General Maura Healey in a press release. “Those who falsify these reports, which can have significant public health and environmental consequences, are violating the law.”

Oldfield told the Sentinel & Enterprise News he was unaware of the indictments.

Source: Sentinel & Enterprise News

UN Says Wastewater is Valuable Resource

A United Nations report released last week shows that 80 percent of the world’s wastewater is discharged into the environment without treatment. The 2017 UN World Water Development Report also highlighted the idea that wastewater should be considered a resource instead of a problem.

“Wastewater itself is a valuable resource, even the term wastewater is an oxymoron,” Richard Connor, editor-in-chief of the report, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We need to stop seeing it as a burden to be dealt with. It’s not a waste and should not be a waste, especially in this world of water scarcity.”

The UN says that with the global population expected to grow to more than 9 billion people in the next 33 years, the world will need 55 percent more water and 70 percent more energy.

Source: News.com.au

New Jersey City Owes $355,000 for Inaccurate Quality Reports

The city of New Brunswick, New Jersey, has yet to settle a $355,000 penalty it received years ago for water utility violations.

A former operator for the utility submitted inaccurate quality reports to the state DEP from 2010 through 2013, according to TAP News.

The man pled guilty to corruption of public resources and other water-related violations in 2015, losing his operator’s license and getting suspended without pay before resigning from his job.

The state levied the fine against the city for the operator’s action, although state environmental officials said there wasn’t evidence that public health was impacted by the operator’s actions.

Source: TAP News