Padre Dam Municipal Water District created a video where a water droplet named “Big Deal” helps educate the public about its water reuse program. Click to watch the video. Photo courtesy of the Padre Dam Municipal Water District.
Padre Dam Municipal Water District (PDMWD; Santee, Calif.) hopes to build public support for its East County Advanced Water Purification Program with a 2-minute video featuring a message for all ages. The potable reuse program has the potential to meet up to 30% of local drinking water demand from approximately 100,000 customers, according to a PDMWD news release.
The animated video stars a water droplet named “Big Deal” and introduces such concepts as drought, wastewater, water resource reclamation facilities, and basic treatment procedures. It focuses on the California water landscape and the potential benefits of the East County Purification Program, but the illustrated life cycle of Big Deal introduces the underlying concepts of reuse for a general audience.
PDMWD currently imports 100% of its drinking water supply from the Colorado River and the Sacramento Bay Delta, according to the video. Emphasizing the opportunities lost by refusing to recycle local water supplies, the video shows two scenarios. In the first scenario, Big Deal is treated and released into the ocean; and in the second, Big Deal is purified, used to recharge the water supply, and reused in the community. Reuse would diversify the area’s water supply and reduce dependence on far-away imports, the video says.
If it moves forward, the district’s East County Advanced Water Purification Program will recycle and reuse water to meet up to 30% of the local drinking water demand. Click to learn more about the program or to see a series of other educational videos. Photo courtesy of the Padre Dam Municipal Water District.
The program “will create a new, local, sustainable and drought-proof drinking water supply using state-of-the-art technology to purify East County’s recycled water,” according to the news release. The video was created to make a simple yet compelling case for potable reuse as drinking water scarcity increasingly becomes a “big deal,” the release says.
Watch the video on the Padre Dam Municipal Water District’s website.
— Justin Jacques, WEF Highlights
December 8, 2016
Featured, Multimedia