A three-phase evaluation of reclaimed process wastewater for reuse was undertaken at the Sterling Processing Corporation plant in Oakland, Maryland. The main objective was to evaluate the safety for human consumption of poultry exposed during processing to an average 50 percent mixture of treated well water and reclaimed wastewater. To that end, a determination was made of the ability and reliability of the water reclamation system to deliver satisfactory quality water, and whether the processed poultry would have any excess microbiological or chemical constituents, harmful to human health, as a result of exposure to such water. After the renovation system was optimized (Phase 1), a two-month study (Phase 2) was instituted, which simulated recycle of renovated water through the poultry plant. Chemical, physical, and microbiological analyses were performed on various water, wastewater and poultry samples. An experimental chiller, filled with renovated water, was utilized to compare the uptake of such constituents by the processed birds with that resulting from exposure to the chiller in the processing plant using the normally treated well water. An evaluation of the Phase 2 study, as well as other data, leads to the conclusion that the safety of the consumers of the poultry would not be jeopardized if the planned trial period of reuse (Phase 3) were instituted.

"Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh." "Industrial Pollution Control Division, Industrial Environmental Research Laboratory." "Field Studies Division, Health Effects Research Laboratory." "August 1979." Includes bibliographical references (pages 60-62). "Grant nos. R804286 & S803325."