The Brief

If you were to drink improperly recycled toilet water, it could really hurt you — but probably not in the way you’re thinking. Advanced purification technology so thoroughly cleans wastewater of feces and other contaminants that it also strips out natural minerals, which the treatment facility then has to add back in. If it didn’t, that purified water would imperil you by sucking those minerals out of your body as it moves through your internal plumbing.

So if it’s perfectly safe to consume recycled toilet water, why aren’t Americans living in parched western states drinking more of it? A new report from researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Natural Resources Defense Council finds that seven western states that rely on the Colorado River are on average recycling just a quarter of their water, even as they fight each other and Indigenous tribes for access to the river amid worsening droughts. Populations are also booming in the Southwest, meaning there’s less water for more people.

The report finds that states are recycling wildly different proportions of their water. On the high end, Nevada reuses 85%, followed by Arizona at 52%. But other states lag far behind, including California (22%) and New Mexico (18%), with Colorado and Wyoming at less than 4% and Utah recycling next to nothing.

“Overall, we are not doing nearly enough to develop wastewater recycling in the seven states that are part of the Colorado River Basin,” said Noah Garrison, a water researcher at UCLA and co-author of the report. “We’re going to have a 2 million to 4 million acre-foot per year shortage in the amount of water that we’ve promised to be delivered from the Colorado River.” (An acre-foot is what it would take to cover an acre of land in a foot of water, equal to 326,000 gallons.)

The report found that if the states other than high-achieving Nevada and Arizona increased their wastewater reuse to 50 percent, they’d boost water availability by 1.3 million acre-feet every year. Experts think that it’s not a question of whether states need to reuse more toilet water but how quickly they can build the infrastructure as droughts worsen and populations swell.

At the same time, states need to redouble efforts to reduce their demand for water, experts say. The Southern Nevada Water Authority, for example, provides cash rebates for homeowners to replace their water-demanding lawns with natural landscaping, stocking them with native plants that flourish without sprinklers. Between conserving water and recycling more of it, western states have to renegotiate their relationship with the increasingly precious resource.

“It’s unbelievable to me that people don’t recognize that the answer is: You’re not going to get more water,” said John Helly, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who wasn’t involved in the report. “We’ve lulled ourselves into this sense of complacency about the criticality of water and it’s just starting to dawn on people that this is a serious problem.”

Yet the report notes that states vary significantly in their development and regulation of water recycling. For one, they treat wastewater to varying levels of purity. To get it ultra pure for drinking, human waste and other solids are removed before the water is treated with ozone to kill bacteria and viruses. Next the water is forced through fine membranes to catch other particles. A facility then hits the liquid with UV light, killing off any microbes that might remain, and adds back those missing minerals.

That process is expensive, however, as building a wastewater-treatment facility itself is costly, and it takes a lot of electricity to pump the water hard enough to get it through the filters. Alternatively, some water agencies will treat wastewater and pump the liquid underground into aquifers, where the earth filters it further. To use the water for golf courses and nonedible crops, they treat wastewater less extensively.

Absent guidance from the federal government, every state goes about this differently, with their own regulations for how clean water needs to be for potable or nonpotable use. Nevada, which receives an average of just 10 inches of rainfall a year, has an environmental division that issues permits for water reuse and oversees quality standards, along with a state fund that bankrolls projects. “It is a costly enterprise, and we really do need to see states and the federal government developing new funding streams or revenue streams in order to develop wastewater treatment,” Garrison said. “This is a readily available, permanent supply of water.”

Wastewater recycling can happen at a much smaller scale too. A company called Epic Cleantec, based in San Francisco, makes a miniature treatment facility that fits inside high-rises. It pumps recycled water back into the units for non-potable use like filling toilets. While it takes many years to build a large treatment facility, these smaller systems come online in a matter of months and can reuse up to 95% of a building’s water.

Epic Cleantec says its systems and municipal plants can work in tandem as a sort of distributed network of wastewater recycling. “In the same way that we do with energy, where it’s not just on-site rooftop solar and large energy plants, it’s both of them together creating a more resilient system,” said Aaron Tartakovsky, Epic Cleantec’s CEO and co-founder. “To use a water pun, I think there’s a lot of untapped potential here.”

What happens when a self-proclaimed “cultural provocateur” who’s embraced titles like the “Pope of Trash” and “Duke of Dirt” turns 80?

For one thing, writer and filmmaker John Waters told LAist, applause comes easier: “People applaud and I say, ‘Why?’ I haven't even said anything yet.’ It's 'cause I'm still alive.”

Not only is he still alive (and not quite 80 yet) he’s still “out there” and is not slowing down.

“I go to heavy metal concerts. I'm always going to things to spy on young people,” Waters said. “I'm always watching. All writers watch all the time.”

In addition to writing, he’s touring with a new one-man show titled “Going to Extremes” (with a stop in Los Angeles on April 14).

And as for what “extreme” means to him at this stage in his life, Waters said, “It used to be a good word, [but] now it's so bad because the government seems so extreme in such a ludicrous way to me. But the left and the right are both extreme now, they both are touchy, they have no humor. So I'm in the middle, using humor as a weapon [...] Humor is the only thing we have left to change things.”

Here are some highlights from Waters’s interview with LAist host Julia Paskin ahead of his “Going to Extremes” show in L.A. — condensed and edited for clarity.

“Provocative” versus “shocking”

Julia Paskin: Is it harder to be provocative or to make art that shocks in today's world? Talking about spying on the young people, I think about young people and how they're saturated with imagery that previous generations weren't. How do you penetrate that?

John Waters: That’s true. But to me, it's hard to be provocative. It's easy to be shocking, but shocking isn't always that good or funny or doesn't change anything.

What’s more intriguing to me, is to go to that edge where you can't walk and have both sides laugh with you, and at themself first, and then that's change. That's the only way we're gonna solve this. That's the only way we're gonna bring the country together.

 And maybe we should have sex with each other. Maybe every Proud Boy should have sex with antifa.

The pros and cons of Los Angeles — for writers and book-lovers

John Waters:  I don't wanna be around people that only talk about show business. And unfortunately, most everyone I know in Los Angeles, and I have great friends there, and I have a great time there, but they're all in the arts in some way. So that's all anybody talks about. In the other cities [San Francisco, New York, Provincetown and Baltimore, where Waters has residences] I know people that are truck drivers, funeral directors. I get more material that way.

Julia Paskin: You wrote in your 1986 book Crackpot that “Los Angeles is everything a great American city should be: Rich, hilarious, of questionable taste and throbbing with fake glamour.” Does that assessment still hold true for you?

John Waters:  It certainly does. But I also like being in L.A. recently when I have friends that take me to places that I've never been, because I'm always working when I'm in L.A. I'm never there with time off. 

So I really have fun there — lots of good bookshops and lots of neighborhoods I didn't know, like Echo Park. So I have fun in L.A. in a whole different way.  But that's when I'm not working.

Julia Paskin:  Any spots in L.A. you wanna shout out? Anything that was particularly cool? 

John Waters: [Stories Books and Cafe], that bookshop I love in Echo Park, there's a guy named John Tottenham who wrote a hilarious book about working there that you should really read. So I like to always go there. They have a really good selection of books.

Artificial intelligence for art?

John Waters:  Everybody asks me about AI and the thing is, I've used it a couple times and was shocked at how good it was, but then I didn't want to use the image, so I had to have it repainted by a real artist so I wasn't using it. 

But I want AI to cure cancer. I want AI to cure AIDS. I want AI to cure COVID. I want AI for science, and I'm all for it, if that works. 

Julia Paskin: What about in art?  

John Waters: I mean, nothing is off limits for art. You can use anything in a new way and AI is new, so of course it can be used for something. The problem is it's a good first draft that you didn't think up, but you sort of thought it up because you told it what to do.

So it is astounding. It is a magic trick to me that's amazing. But it's here, it's certainly not gonna go away. I always thought it would be good for just porn, but you can tell immediately, it never looks real. It's too good. It looks ridiculous. 

Advice for aspiring artists, writers filmmakers

 John Waters: Always have a backup career. I like to tell stories, so if I can’t get a movie made, I write a book.

Go see everything. Whatever field you wanna be in, participate. If you wanna be an artist, go to every gallery 'till you see a gallery that might like your work. See every movie, watch 'em with the sound off so you can see how they're edited. 

You have to participate in the world that you want to enter. If you wanna be in fashion, go to the thrift. You don't have to spend lots of money. Go to the thrift shops and buy the worst outfits that cost a nickel, that then are referenced by big designers that cost $5,000 a week later. 

In the ever-evolving Inland Empire, the city of Ontario is experiencing significant changes, largely due to a growing “sports empire.”

Often dubbed the Gateway to Southern California, the city stretches across San Bernardino and Riverside counties and has shifted from an agricultural colony to a bustling residential hot spot.

Ontario Sports Empire

Last week, Ontario opened its brand new ONT Field, home of the Dodgers’ Single-A affiliate, the Tower Buzzers, which holds up to 6,500 fans.

Ontario City Manager Scott Ochoa joined AirTalk, LAist 89.3’s daily news show, to talk about how it’s shaping the city.

“The idea of putting together a sports complex that allows both community play and attracts the burgeoning market for travel teams really manifested itself into the potential of that 200-acre parcel,” Ochoa said.

The city plans to use this field and its surrounding area, calling it the Ontario Sports Empire, for a variety of tournament sports.

Here are some of the key features:

• Eight full-size baseball diamonds, 14 youth diamonds 
• 20 multipurpose fields for soccer or lacrosse that can be converted into four football or rugby fields
• Three large playground areas
• 227-room hotel  
• 51-foot jumbotron
• Six-level parking garage

Ontario Sports Empire will open in October. You can read more about the project’s development here.

‘A chip on our shoulder’

“The Sports Empire is really born from a chip on our shoulder,” Ochoa said, adding that they may be in the Inland Empire, but the goal is to remain as part of Greater Los Angeles.

That’s part of the Ontario City Council’s long-term strategy to expand offered amenities consistent with the boom in single-family home development over the last few decades. Ochoa said that, given Ontario’s proximity to L.A., he believes the city has a unique opportunity to evolve into an entertainment hub.

“Compared to the coastal communities, we are affordable,” he said.

Kome Ajise, executive director of the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), pointed to sports entertainment hubs like those in Inglewood that have grown around SoFi Stadium and Intuit Dome.

“Ontario has stepped forward to create a center that will dominate,” he said.

More growth

The City Council is working to expand the city’s 130-acre Grand Park to 340 acres, making it longer than Central Park in Manhattan, as well as a new Capital City Project that will be an entertainment mixed-use space.

Listen here

The U.S. war with Iran and the resulting spike in energy prices have pushed inflation to its highest level in nearly two years.

A report from the Labor Department Friday showed consumer prices in March were up 3.3% from a year ago. That's the biggest annual increase since May of 2024. Prices jumped 0.9% between February and March, with higher gasoline prices accounting for nearly three-quarters of that increase.

Gas prices have jumped by more than a dollar a gallon, on average, since the U.S. and Israel launched their attack on Iran. Pump prices have remained high this week, despite a tentative ceasefire.

Higher jet fuel prices also contributed to a jump in the cost of airline tickets last month, although food prices were flat, as rising costs for restaurant meals offset a decline in grocery prices.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called "core" inflation was 2.6% in March.

Inflation spike reverses stabilizing trend

Although inflation is nowhere near the four-decade high it reached in 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, progress on stabilizing prices fizzled out last year, partly as a result of President Trump's tariffs. The wartime jump in energy prices has pushed inflation even higher.

"We were making progress, making progress. Then we kind of stalled out and now it's been inching itself up the other way," Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee told the Detroit Economic Club this week.

Goolsbee worries that the longer inflation stays above the Federal Reserve's 2% target, the greater the risk that high inflation becomes baked into the economy. But a survey from the New York Fed this week showed that even though people expect higher inflation in the short run, they still believe it will come down in the long run.

Fed policymakers try not to overreact to a spike in gasoline prices, which are notorious for bouncing up and down. But core inflation has also been climbing, which is likely to make the central bank cautious about any quick cuts in interest rates.

The Fed is also keeping a close eye on the job market, which showed some signs of life in March when employers added 178,000 jobs, after cutting workers the previous month. While employers have not been adding a lot of jobs, they've been reluctant to lay people off as well.

"I think it's from uncertainty," Goolsbee said. "I think that's what happens when businesses are uncertain and they say we're just going to sit on our hands until we figure out, is the war going to be a temporary shock?"

Copyright 2026 NPR

Hudson Idov wasn’t excited about any of his college options — that is, until his Los Angeles house burned down in the Palisades Fire his senior year of high school.

Less than a week after graduation, he and one of his classmates enrolled in the carpentry program at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, a community college just south of downtown. Their goal is to start a construction company one day and help rebuild the Palisades. “We have big, big 10-year plans,” he said during a break in his morning class.

His personal tragedy drove the decision, but he also considers it wise to pursue a high-demand job, especially now. Before the Palisades and Eaton fires last year, Los Angeles was already short roughly 70,000 qualified construction workers. The destruction of thousands of homes and businesses during the fires made that problem even worse. The city now needs over 100,000 new workers in construction and construction-related careers, according to one state analysis, which estimates median pay at just under $30 an hour, though it varies depending on the position and the level of experience.

Student Hudson Idov during class in the carpentry department at Los Angeles Trade Technical College on March 24, 2026.

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Jules Hotz

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CalMatters

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Last year, the state awarded five Los Angeles community colleges a total of $5 million to train more workers who can help rebuild from the Palisades and Eaton fires. The money only recently arrived at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, where it will fund supplies and new curricula for students who are entering the construction industry. Pasadena City College, a few miles northeast of Los Angeles Trade-Tech, is using part of the money to build a 55,000-square-foot center for construction training.

Historically, it takes years to recover after devastating fires, and some California cities hit hard by fires in 2017 and 2018 still have just a fraction of their homes rebuilt.

“We can’t put out enough people,” said Jaime Alvarez, one of Idov’s carpentry instructors, as students hammered, sawed and drilled all around him. This semester, Alvarez has about 30 students. The four-semester carpentry program at the technical college is likely the largest such program in the state, enrolling over 1,800 people per year.

Rebuilding the foundation of the Palisades

Idov still lives in an AirBnB with the few belongings he grabbed on the night he evacuated his home. He has some of his clothes and a couple of personal items he could fit in his car, such as a bowling pin from a birthday party he went to as a kid. The rest is gone, he said.

Most days, he starts school at 7 a.m and finishes around noon. He normally spends the afternoons working part time for a general contractor. The carpentry program is designed to take about two years to complete, roughly 25 hours a week. This semester, he’s learning how to build concrete foundations, how to drill rebar into those foundations and to construct the frame of a building — work that’s particularly needed in fire-damaged parts of Los Angeles.

Nicole Jordan, a carpentry instructor, teaches a class at Los Angeles Trade Technical College on March 24, 2026.

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Jules Hotz

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CalMatters

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The extreme heat from fires doesn’t just burn down wood; it also makes concrete foundations brittle and unstable, Alvarez said. His course has to be sparing with its use of concrete, though, since it’s expensive.

Although the college’s construction, maintenance and utilities programs have a total annual budget of over $10 million, most of the money goes to staff salaries, leaving just over $575,000 for many of the supplies students use, said Abigail Patton, the vice president of academic affairs. She said the state grant for fire recovery will help supplement supply costs, including the concrete in Alvarez’s class.

While the state funding is helping, other money recently fell through. In 2024, Los Angeles Trade-Tech was one of the recipients of a $20 million federal grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. The college was set to receive $2 million through that grant, part of which went to the Coalition for Responsible Community Development, an economic development organization based in south Los Angeles.

The money was supposed to support the college’s construction programs, where students would learn about home weatherization, lead abatement, and residential energy audits. The federal agency disbursed just over $88,000 of the grant to the Coalition for Responsible Community Development before suddenly cancelling it last May after President Trump took office. Environmental justice groups filed a lawsuit appealing the Trump administration’s decision.

The Coalition for Responsible Community Development refused to comment about the grant, but the Environmental Protection Agency was unsparing in its remarks. “Maybe the Biden-Harris Administration shouldn’t have forced its radical agenda of wasteful DEI programs and ‘environmental justice’ priorities on the EPA’s core mission,” said Brigit Hirsch, press secretary for the department, in an email to CalMatters. “Thankfully, those days are over.”

‘It’s not all fun and games’

Some short-term community college certificates in construction can lead to high-paying jobs, including some that pay over $40 an hour. Many of Los Angeles Trade-Tech’s programs, including carpentry, electrical maintenance and welding, are popular and often at capacity.

But students who enroll rarely graduate. Ultimately, about 33% of students who started at Los Angeles Trade-Tech’s construction, maintenance and utilities programs got a certificate, degree or transferred to a university within four years, according to the college’s data from students who started in 2021. Low graduation rates are typical for most community colleges. Many students, especially low-income students, struggle to manage the demands of school along with caring for children or aging parents and working full- or part-time jobs.

Students participate in hands-on classwork at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College on March 24, 2026.

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Jules Hotz

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CalMatters

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Students participate in hands-on classwork at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College on March 24, 2026.

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Jules Hotz

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CalMatters

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“We get floods of students that want to do this, and I say it’s not all fun and games in terms of swinging a hammer,” said Nicole Jordan, who teaches the first semester in the carpentry program. “We do a lot of math and a lot of book work.” Before Jordan’s students start building anything, they have to study blueprints and Los Angeles building codes so they know what is possible and legally required.

Still, there’s a sense of community among the students, who vary in age and ethnic background. To help them get through it, Jordan’s first semester students have a cheer. “We the best,” one student yells as they sit in a classroom. “Carpentry,” responds everyone in unison.

After the cheer, Jordan walks up to the white board and the class settles down. She sketches out the blueprint of a home. If they stick around, the students will build that home in just four semesters.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.