Good question. Water technology was stagnant from about the 1920's to 1960's. The Clean Water Act of 1972 really pushed wastewater treatment research and improvements. The Safe Drinking Water Act and the discovery of THMs started the ball rolling on technology for drinking water and desalination got started in the 60's-70's in the Middle East. There is a lot of research work now but it is not well coordinated between government, university and water organizations, and sometimes duplicative. One good step was consolidation of WERF and Water Reuse Foundation into WE&RF. AWWA RF (WRF) should join so that the research will be be more efficiently managed. One major problem is that water and wastewater plants are expensive and they run many years so the introduction of new technology is slow. Also, state sanitary engineers and consulting engineers are very risk averse so it takes a long time for new technology to be accepted.
Published by Joseph Cotruvo, President at Joseph Cotruvo & Associates, Water , Environment and Public Health
Good question. Water technology was stagnant from about the 1920's to 1960's. The Clean Water Act of 1972 really pushed wastewater treatment research and improvements. The Safe Drinking Water Act and the discovery of THMs started the ball rolling on technology for drinking water and desalination got started in the 60's-70's in the Middle East. There is a lot of research work now but it is not well coordinated between government, university and water organizations, and sometimes duplicative. One good step was consolidation of WERF and Water Reuse Foundation into WE&RF. AWWA RF (WRF) should join so that the research will be be more efficiently managed. One major problem is that water and wastewater plants are expensive and they run many years so the introduction of new technology is slow. Also, state sanitary engineers and consulting engineers are very risk averse so it takes a long time for new technology to be accepted.