Left to herself, Mother Nature knows how to recycle plant, animal, and human waste -- within limits. Unfortunately, industrialized society has surpassed those limits, with overpopulation of urban centers, a plethora of unregulated household, business and commercial products which can kill lakes and streams, and approaches to sewage treatment that haven't changed much since the days of the Roman Empire.
Enter John Todd, an aquatic biologist who has found a way to use Mother Nature's secrets to turn toxic sludge into water pure enough to drink -- cleaner, in fact, than many municipal water supplies. Todd, formerly a research scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, U.S.A., has taken the developments of the last twenty years in rock marsh and wetland "natural" treatment of sewage one step further by putting the whole system under a greenhouse.
Because of the quality of water his solar aquatic system produces, Todd prefers to call the ecologically engineered sewage treatment system he invented a wastewater restoration system. With the diminution of sources of unpolluted water and, with rising population, an increasing demand for clean water, Todd's invention could be a godsend to urban centers.
John Todd was one of the cofounders in 1969 of the New Alehemy Institute on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, U.S.A. New Alchemy is best known as a center where environmental and ecological theory are put into practice with a hands-on approach. In 1984 Todd decided to do something about the pollution of New England waterways and water tables. Under the auspices of Ocean Arks International (OAI), another non-profit organization started by Todd, the Solar Aquatic System was invented.
In 1988, Ecological Engineering Associates was established by Todd and former Woods Hold colleague Susan B. Peterson to purchase and commercially develop Todd's designs for solar greenhouses which purify wastewater. During the summer of 1988 John Todd and Ecological Engineering Associates (EEA) operated an experimental solar aquatics facility in the town of Harwich, Massachusetts, U.S.A. The results were so good that Harwich has recently commissioned EEA to build a commercial facility there.
Another research facility also has been built in Providence, Rhode Island; this facility will process between 75,000 and 118,000 Liters per day of sewage including both domestic and industrial waste. The new project under construction in Marion, Massachusetts, will treat water contaminated by waste pumped into the coastal waters by boaters, in an effort to stop water pollution near Marion.