Brent Haddad studies water in a place where water is often in short supply: California. Haddad is a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. About 14 years ago, he became very interested in the issue of water reuse.At the time, a number of California's local water agencies were proposing a different approach to the state's perennial water problems. They wanted to build plants that would clean local wastewater and after that cleaning, make it available as drinking water. But, says Haddad, these proposals were consistently shot down by an unwilling public. "The public wasn't really examining the science involved," Haddad says. "They were just saying, no." This infuriated the water engineers, who thought the public's response was fundamentally irrational, Haddad says.
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