Ok, so sue me, I'm in a snit about brine discharge again. I found this article about another town considering a ban on salt water softeners. Dixon, to be specific. I admit I did not know exactly where Dixon is, but was quickly informed by Wikipedia that it is a town in Solano County, 23 miles north of Sacramento, California. Population a mere 16K. Sounds nice.
What is not nice is what's happening with their treated sewer water...
The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board ordered Dixon to lower salinity levels at its wastewater treatment plant or face fines. An effort to raise sewer rates to fund an expansion at the plant was overturned by voters last November. (Though they don't say any more about the "expansion", the obvious choice would be reverse osmosis - because that's what takes salt out.) Since then, the Wastewater Project Committee, an appointed citizen's advisory committee, has been looking at various options to deal with the situation.
Regarding water softeners, the article states, "While it may be possible to ban future installations, dealing with the use of existing softeners won't be so easy. Existing water softener regulation would require incentives and education programs to help people understand the environmental consequences of continued disposal of high volumes of salt into the waste system. The current units cannot be required to be removed because they were legally installed."
Sounds like they might want to talk with the folks in Santa Clarita, California, where a ban of new salt water softeners went into effect in 2003, and a campaign including significant rebates for removing existing water softeners has been on-going.
Take that, Culligan.
