In case you've been living under or in a rock for the last year or so, the ubiquitous plastic water bottles that grew into the hands of many affluent humans during the last decade have quickly become Politically Uncorrect (PU) and most of us are seeking better ways to carry a small convenient container of drinking water around with us. I recently bought six stainless steel bottles from a small company named Nubius Organics in Santa Cruz. We will use these at home and while strolling around the 'hood.
Today I read a bolg post by Mellissa Byer, ranting about a new bottled water called Tap'dNY, which is, as the name implies, botlled municipal New York City tap water. What set off Ms. Byer was the claim on the label that "No Glaciers Were Harmed in the Bottling of this Water." What purity this water represents is offset by the greenwashing spin of this marketing BS that ignores the carbon cost of bottling and then trucking any water to a potential consumer.
This great video produced Quest for KQED in San Francisco puts the plastic water bottle in its proper perspective
There is an inexpensive way for managing the taste and quality of the tap water, which, in our neighborhood, is fairly good quality well water from a well field a few thousand feet downstream on the west bank of Coyote Creek at East Santa Clara Street and South Seventeenth Street. We use a Brita brand carbon filter that fits into a two-part pitcher and lasts about a month and costs about $5.00. This company is a subsidiary of Chlorox, the makers of the disinfectant of choice of most water companies to protect the water while it is in the pipelines from microbial growth, but which also give tap water its bad rap, causing a foul taste. So the same company that causes the problem, also profits in removing it. What a great business plan!
But Chlorox was recently challenged to stop manufacturing a plastic-case filter containing expensive activated carbon that was simply (for them) disposable. A woman in Oakland, CA created a website called TAKE BACK THE FILTER and began collecting used Brita filters to stage a political action/press conference at Chlorox Headquarters during a shareholders meeting. This example of Blessed Unrest has now caused this large corporation to agree to start taking back its filters in January 2009, which may soon lead to the redesign of the filter product to make it easier to deprocess and reuse the components. Actually, as noted on Beth Terry's blog site, Fake Plastic Fish, she reveals that Brita's filters sold in Europe are recyclable, but not those manufactured for consumption in the US. Wasup with that?
To read more about tap water filter options, click here.
Never Thirst!
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Michael Pollan for Farmer In Chief
I have written several posts on growing food locally. My last post was on the potential demise of food production in the San Joaquin Valley due to all the salt that's in the irrigation water.
Today I watched the PBS video archive of Bill Moyers interviewing Michael Pollan and encouraging him to accept, if offered, the cabinet post of Secretary of Agriculture in the Obama cabinet.
Instead of suffering through more of my verbosity on the subject of local food production, I encourage you to view this two-part video interview.
Never Hunger, Never Thirst!
Today I watched the PBS video archive of Bill Moyers interviewing Michael Pollan and encouraging him to accept, if offered, the cabinet post of Secretary of Agriculture in the Obama cabinet.
Instead of suffering through more of my verbosity on the subject of local food production, I encourage you to view this two-part video interview.
Never Hunger, Never Thirst!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Salt of the Earth
The San Joaquin Valley is the California poster child for desertification through salinization of its soils from using water from the Federal Central Valley Project. This water contains 2 million tons of salt, applied through out each successive irrigation season.
The oceans are the planetary depository for salt. The continents have been contributing salt to the oceans since rain began to fall from the atmosphere. Humans add their piece to the salt flow with their activities, greatly accelerating the salt flow from certain watersheds.
Industrial agriculture adds enormous salt loads to the receiving waters upstream of the ocean and re-distributes salt downstream through irrigation projects, mainly financed by the federal government.
Twenty five years ago, the State was prepared to build a canal around the eastern edge of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and thereby reduce this salt load by half and further restrict pumping if salt levels were too high to deliver water during droughts. That essential piece of plumbing was then called the Peripheral Canal and these have become the most dreaded two words in Sacramento.
In response to the State, certain large agricultural interests financed a campaign to stop the Peripheral Canal with a referendum to reverse the state legislative actions which authorized the Department of Water Resources to build the final link in this massive water system. Most support to kill the canal came from the Delta farmers and cotton empires of the Salyer and JG Boswell, built mostly in Tulare Lake and surrounding wetlands. Read excerpts from The King of California here.
With the success of this one ballot measure, San Joaquin Valley farmers fired the poison dart that would steal this 100 year effort by the US Bureau of Reclamation to reclaim these arid lands for production of food and fiber to supply our nation and much of the world. Over the past twenty-five years, the farm lands have been laced with 50 million tons of salt delivered with the irrigation water, twice as salty as it would have been if the Peripheral Can had been built.
It is while these lands are still a viable agricultural resource that we need to act.
I'd like to see California push toward more sustainable agriculture by lowering the salt content of the irrigation water in the San Joaquin Valley rather than watch the land owners salt it in and then develop the salt flats with urbanscape. This means we build the peripheral canal and design it for considerable sea level rise.
Congress should act soon to simply halt all water rights if land use conversion removes it from its agricultural purposes, even if it is due to loss of productivity due to soil pollution. This will create a major shift in protecting our national agricultural resources by making all farmers perpetual stewards of the land, in exchange for a government-developed supply of water.
This proposal would bring the ag lobby to arms like you've never seen it, but it will be good to force them to show their hand (and strong arm behind it!)
George Miller is one of the few members of Congress who could kick off something like this. Congressman Henry Waxman in Southern California could be his strong ally. Senate allies will probably have to come from outside California, as our incumbent Senators Feinstein and Boxer are already owned by the ag lobby.
When the Peripheral Canal was stopped 25 years ago, I started calling the San Joaquin Valley the new Metropolis of SacroBake, home to 30 million future California residents, unable to grow even a backyard garden in this newly created desert, wondering where their next water will come from: the sky or the good graces of the water managers who control any water coming from the ground or aqueducts and still able to pass the health standards set for salinity? Listen to NPR audio track on California Delta Faces Salty Future.
The world may yet mark us down as one more society that crumbled because of mismanaged irrigated agriculture and a self-imposed victim of too much Salt of The Earth.
The oceans are the planetary depository for salt. The continents have been contributing salt to the oceans since rain began to fall from the atmosphere. Humans add their piece to the salt flow with their activities, greatly accelerating the salt flow from certain watersheds.
Industrial agriculture adds enormous salt loads to the receiving waters upstream of the ocean and re-distributes salt downstream through irrigation projects, mainly financed by the federal government.
Twenty five years ago, the State was prepared to build a canal around the eastern edge of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and thereby reduce this salt load by half and further restrict pumping if salt levels were too high to deliver water during droughts. That essential piece of plumbing was then called the Peripheral Canal and these have become the most dreaded two words in Sacramento.
In response to the State, certain large agricultural interests financed a campaign to stop the Peripheral Canal with a referendum to reverse the state legislative actions which authorized the Department of Water Resources to build the final link in this massive water system. Most support to kill the canal came from the Delta farmers and cotton empires of the Salyer and JG Boswell, built mostly in Tulare Lake and surrounding wetlands. Read excerpts from The King of California here.
With the success of this one ballot measure, San Joaquin Valley farmers fired the poison dart that would steal this 100 year effort by the US Bureau of Reclamation to reclaim these arid lands for production of food and fiber to supply our nation and much of the world. Over the past twenty-five years, the farm lands have been laced with 50 million tons of salt delivered with the irrigation water, twice as salty as it would have been if the Peripheral Can had been built.
It is while these lands are still a viable agricultural resource that we need to act.
I'd like to see California push toward more sustainable agriculture by lowering the salt content of the irrigation water in the San Joaquin Valley rather than watch the land owners salt it in and then develop the salt flats with urbanscape. This means we build the peripheral canal and design it for considerable sea level rise.
Congress should act soon to simply halt all water rights if land use conversion removes it from its agricultural purposes, even if it is due to loss of productivity due to soil pollution. This will create a major shift in protecting our national agricultural resources by making all farmers perpetual stewards of the land, in exchange for a government-developed supply of water.
This proposal would bring the ag lobby to arms like you've never seen it, but it will be good to force them to show their hand (and strong arm behind it!)
George Miller is one of the few members of Congress who could kick off something like this. Congressman Henry Waxman in Southern California could be his strong ally. Senate allies will probably have to come from outside California, as our incumbent Senators Feinstein and Boxer are already owned by the ag lobby.
When the Peripheral Canal was stopped 25 years ago, I started calling the San Joaquin Valley the new Metropolis of SacroBake, home to 30 million future California residents, unable to grow even a backyard garden in this newly created desert, wondering where their next water will come from: the sky or the good graces of the water managers who control any water coming from the ground or aqueducts and still able to pass the health standards set for salinity? Listen to NPR audio track on California Delta Faces Salty Future.
The world may yet mark us down as one more society that crumbled because of mismanaged irrigated agriculture and a self-imposed victim of too much Salt of The Earth.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Piled Higher and Deeper
One way to REDUCE your flow of garbage to our local landfills is to compost your food scraps from your kitchen. Composting is pretty simple, but if you need guidance you can take a short course at Emma Prusch Park or read more by clicking here.
I use a PHD approach, simply Piled Higher and Deeper. My compost pile is just that, a pile of dirt near my garden where I bury the contents of my compost bucket when it's full or getting too ripe for the kitchen. Actually, we separate some of our food scraps into other containers for the chickens or rabbits, which serves as some of the feed for our livestock, who then in turn contribute their manure for further enriching our garden's fertility.
But food scraps are actually the smallest component of my weekly disposal of unwanted stuff, which includes such things as packaging, bottles, cans, junk mail, newspapers, bill envelopes and stuffers. There's also paper scraps from my wife's art work and broken or obsolete small appliances and electronics. All these items are placed religiously into our RECYCLE bins.
If you live in San Jose, you know that we no longer need to separate our recycling into different bins, although I still do. A former Director of Environmental Services, Carl Mosher, thought it would be more "cost effective" to have residents dump all their recyclables into a 96-gallon wheeled cart and have paid workers separate it at a central processing plant.
This one ill-conceived decision led to the downfall of one San Jose mayor and his would-be successor. The new garbage cart would, in theory, eliminate the need for one teamster from the collection crew and be replaced with lower cost workers at the separation conveyor belt who would belong to a different union.
But the Teamsters did not take well to this elimination of a quarter of their drivers, so they demanded that the separation crew be members of the Teamsters union, and the cost would be an extra $5 million over the duration of the contract.
Mayor Ron Gonzales met with the garbage company officials and soon realized that he was in a lose-lose situation. If the Teamsters didn't get their way, they would call for a strike and his political career would soon be in serious jeopardy. Instead, he agreed to get the company the extra money that the teamster-separators would cost, but tried to hide the reason from the council and the public. This eventually led to a grand jury indictment and a call for his resignation by the press and some of the council members.
All this political brouhaha was brought on by one civil(ization) engineer who used economics alone to make a societal shift away from personal responsibility for the materials San Jose residents purchased and throw away (even though there is no away) When residents were using recycling bins to separate their cans, bottles, paper and cardboard, they were providing both a valuable ($5million) volunteer service for City and informally taking a measure of the type and amount of recyclables they were consuming and then disposing.
This personal consumption information may not be the knowledge quest of most people, although as we "green up"our lifestyles to avoid global warming, it might start to be of more general interest. However, yesterday, I read about an environmental studies professor who started a project to save and log all his garbage for a full 365 days. Now he's going to practice Piled Higher and Deeper more than he or his family ever imagined.
PostScript: If you are planning to have a party for Halloween or later in the year, you might want to read this post about greener partying.
I use a PHD approach, simply Piled Higher and Deeper. My compost pile is just that, a pile of dirt near my garden where I bury the contents of my compost bucket when it's full or getting too ripe for the kitchen. Actually, we separate some of our food scraps into other containers for the chickens or rabbits, which serves as some of the feed for our livestock, who then in turn contribute their manure for further enriching our garden's fertility.
But food scraps are actually the smallest component of my weekly disposal of unwanted stuff, which includes such things as packaging, bottles, cans, junk mail, newspapers, bill envelopes and stuffers. There's also paper scraps from my wife's art work and broken or obsolete small appliances and electronics. All these items are placed religiously into our RECYCLE bins.
If you live in San Jose, you know that we no longer need to separate our recycling into different bins, although I still do. A former Director of Environmental Services, Carl Mosher, thought it would be more "cost effective" to have residents dump all their recyclables into a 96-gallon wheeled cart and have paid workers separate it at a central processing plant.
This one ill-conceived decision led to the downfall of one San Jose mayor and his would-be successor. The new garbage cart would, in theory, eliminate the need for one teamster from the collection crew and be replaced with lower cost workers at the separation conveyor belt who would belong to a different union.
But the Teamsters did not take well to this elimination of a quarter of their drivers, so they demanded that the separation crew be members of the Teamsters union, and the cost would be an extra $5 million over the duration of the contract.
Mayor Ron Gonzales met with the garbage company officials and soon realized that he was in a lose-lose situation. If the Teamsters didn't get their way, they would call for a strike and his political career would soon be in serious jeopardy. Instead, he agreed to get the company the extra money that the teamster-separators would cost, but tried to hide the reason from the council and the public. This eventually led to a grand jury indictment and a call for his resignation by the press and some of the council members.
All this political brouhaha was brought on by one civil(ization) engineer who used economics alone to make a societal shift away from personal responsibility for the materials San Jose residents purchased and throw away (even though there is no away) When residents were using recycling bins to separate their cans, bottles, paper and cardboard, they were providing both a valuable ($5million) volunteer service for City and informally taking a measure of the type and amount of recyclables they were consuming and then disposing.
This personal consumption information may not be the knowledge quest of most people, although as we "green up"our lifestyles to avoid global warming, it might start to be of more general interest. However, yesterday, I read about an environmental studies professor who started a project to save and log all his garbage for a full 365 days. Now he's going to practice Piled Higher and Deeper more than he or his family ever imagined.
PostScript: If you are planning to have a party for Halloween or later in the year, you might want to read this post about greener partying.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Grey Water For Green Spaces
A few months ago, I received an email from a woman representing the Grey Water Guerrillas trying to organize people to campaign for local ordinances friendly to the concept of grey water reuse at businesses and residences.
My response to her was not too optimistic about getting local or State Health Departments to ever get less cautious about grey water reuse. Remember, a bureaucrat's first job is always CYA, so don't think that a professional health guardian will ever do less to prevent you from spreading disease, even during a serious drought.
Another proponent is taking hope in an actual greywater system that was permitted by the City & People's Republic of Berkeley. His comments can be Downloaded if your curiosity and quest for knowledge care to read Download2 even more.
When a recent call went out by a regional waste(d)water group to speak at a seminar on greywater, no one from the public sector or the many consultant engineers wanted to be a speaker. The only written flyer the organizers could supply was from Australia:
But the real folks leading the local charge on grey water are those that actually do it and tell others about their experience. My neighbors Angelica & Sergio recently put the following in our weekly CSA e-mail:
Much of this water is used for irrigating green spaces, parks, athletic fields, school grounds, common areas and parkway landscaping on major thoroughfares. All this irrigation is also highly regulated by the State Health department, with a continuously cautious eye from the local health department and potablewater purveyors. The latest use of this water will be to irrigate the new community gardens at Guadalupe Parks and Gardens near the corner of Coleman Aveue and Taylor Street. Click here for flyer information.
I wanted to be among the first users of recycled water in California at one of San Jose's community gardens, so I signed up for a plot. Last week I was notified that I would have to attend two trainings as a requirement of the State Health Department for participation as a gardener using recycled water.
The first two-hour session included an introduction to recycled water and the benefits and safeguards involved with using the recycled water to grow food and flowers in our plots. After being told that a specially designed $80 "key" made of brass pipe and a standard hose bib faucet (which had to remain onsite) would be our personal responsibility, a lengthy discussion ensued concerning the security of the garden facility at night, with strong warnings especially from other gardeners who had prior experience with failed security at other community gardens centers.
This was much better than hearing concern for the safety of the water for growing food. During introductions, I mentioned that I had used water from Coyote Creek to irrigate my home gardens for 20 years. I expressed my own concern for some of the constituents of the creek water that I used may have contained chemicals that I would probably not want in my drinking water, but that the plants responded very well to a water supply that contained some plant nutrients and did not have any chlorine, which tends to inhibit growth of living things in the soil and the plants themselves.
Next week we will get assigned our plots and soon we should all be tending our 16x20 plots and growing beautiful plants for both food and flowers. Hopefully this pilot will lead to more green spaces in our urban core, as we evolve our culture to appreciate the wisdom of reusing water, whether it's greywater in our home or recycled water in the community derived from our highly treated municipal waste(d)water supply which also came from our homes and businesses.
Click here to view an award winning PBS-style video on water recycling in California called
Water in an Endless Loop
My response to her was not too optimistic about getting local or State Health Departments to ever get less cautious about grey water reuse. Remember, a bureaucrat's first job is always CYA, so don't think that a professional health guardian will ever do less to prevent you from spreading disease, even during a serious drought.
Another proponent is taking hope in an actual greywater system that was permitted by the City & People's Republic of Berkeley. His comments can be Downloaded if your curiosity and quest for knowledge care to read Download2 even more.
When a recent call went out by a regional waste(d)water group to speak at a seminar on greywater, no one from the public sector or the many consultant engineers wanted to be a speaker. The only written flyer the organizers could supply was from Australia:
Manual Bucketing & Temporary
Diversion of Greywater
Greywater is wastewater generated from bathrooms (showers, baths, spas,
and hand basins), laundries (washing machines, troughs) and kitchens (sinks
and dishwashers). However, kitchen water can contain food particles, grease,
oils and fats and its use is not recommended (particularly without treatment).
Greywater Characteristics
The quality of greywater can be highly
variable due to factors such as number of
household occupants, their age, lifestyle,
health, water source and products used
(such as soaps, shampoos, detergents).
Greywater may contain:
• Disease causing organisms (bacteria,
viruses, protozoa) from nappies and
other soiled clothing.
• Chemicals from soaps, shampoos,
dyes, mouthwash, toothpaste,
detergents, bleaches, disinfectants and
other products (such as boron,
phosphorus, sodium, ammonia and
other nitrogen based compounds).
• Dirt, lint, food, hair, body cells and fats,
and traces of faeces, urine, and blood.
Risks presented by these contaminants
can be reduced by good management
practices and by sensible use.
Manual Bucketing & Temporary
Diversion
Manual bucketing onto lawn and garden
areas using water from the bathroom or
laundry, or temporary use of a hose
manually fitted to the washing machine
outlet hose, is permitted subject to the
following advice:
• Don’t use greywater from washing
clothes soiled by faeces or vomit, for
example, nappies.
• Don’t store untreated greywater for
more than 24 hours, as bacteria and
organic contaminants in greywater will
cause it to turn septic and produce
strong and offensive odours.
• Don’t use greywater if others in the
household have diarrhoea or an
infectious disease, as this could
increase the risk of other people
becoming ill.
• Don’t use greywater to irrigate fruit,
vegetables, or areas where fruit can fall
to the ground and be eaten.
• Avoid splashing of greywater and wash
your hands before eating or drinking or
smoking.
• Keep children away from areas watered
with greywater until it has soaked into
the ground.
Chemical contaminants: detergents,
cleaners and other chemicals
• Environmentally friendly shampoos,
detergents and cleaning products
should be used to protect soil and
plants watered with grey water.
Products containing low levels of boron,
phosphorus and salt should be used.
Boron can be toxic to plants, some
native plants are sensitive to
phosphorous while sodium and other
salts can damage soil structure.
• Washing machine rinse water has lower
concentrations of detergents compared
to wash water. If wash water is used it
should be diluted with rinse water.
• Bleaches and disinfectants can kill
beneficial soil organisms and damage
plants. Avoid using greywater
containing harsh chemicals or bleaches,
or after washing out hair dye or paint
products.
• A useful website that contains
information on laundry products is
http://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au.
Sensible use
• The irrigation setback distances from
swimming pools, bores, dams,
watercourses (inc. River Murray),
buildings and boundaries must be met.
See Section 5 of the Standard for the
Construction, Installation and Operation
of Septic Tank Systems in South
Australia (Supplement B)
• Greywater tends to be slightly alkaline
and this can be harmful to acid loving
plants such as azaleas and camellias.
• Rotate greywater irrigation using mains
(drinking) or rain water, especially in
areas of low rainfall. This will help to
flush salts from the soil.
• Water several locations. This will
prevent salts and other contaminants
accumulating in the soil.
• Prevent pooling and runoff of greywater
onto other properties, into watercourses
and the stormwater system. Pooled
greywater can turn septic and produce
offensive odours.
• Don’t over-water your plants –
greywater shouldn’t be used to irrigate
more than you would with other sources
of water. Plants are susceptible to
waterlogged soil.
• Monitor areas and plants irrigated with
greywater. If there is visual evidence of
damage you may need to modify
watering practices, try a different or
bigger irrigation area, or reduce the
amount of water used.
Soils in many parts of Adelaide have a
high clay content. Clay soils tend to be
more susceptible to build up of salts and
have low permeability. Extra care should
be taken when using greywater in areas of
clay soils to avoid long term damage.
Permanent Greywater Systems
Permanent greywater systems such as
diversion devices or treatment systems, or
any device attached to plumbing, can
increase the use of greywater. However
due to potential risks associated with grey
water, permanent devices require
installation approval from your Council or
the Department of Health.
Information on permanent greywater
systems can be obtained from our
Alternative Onsite Wastewater Systems
Contact
Wastewater Management Section
Public Health
SA Health
1st floor
Citi Centre Building
11 Hindmarsh Square
Adelaide SA 5000
PO Box 6, Rundle Mall
Adelaide SA 5000
Tel 08 8226 7100
Fax 08 8226 7102
ABN 97 643 356 590
Email: public.health@health.sa.gov.au
Web: www.health.sa.gov.au/pehs/environ-
health-index.htm
© Department of Health, Government of South
Australia.
All rights reserved.
Last revised August 2008
Diversion of Greywater
Greywater is wastewater generated from bathrooms (showers, baths, spas,
and hand basins), laundries (washing machines, troughs) and kitchens (sinks
and dishwashers). However, kitchen water can contain food particles, grease,
oils and fats and its use is not recommended (particularly without treatment).
Greywater Characteristics
The quality of greywater can be highly
variable due to factors such as number of
household occupants, their age, lifestyle,
health, water source and products used
(such as soaps, shampoos, detergents).
Greywater may contain:
• Disease causing organisms (bacteria,
viruses, protozoa) from nappies and
other soiled clothing.
• Chemicals from soaps, shampoos,
dyes, mouthwash, toothpaste,
detergents, bleaches, disinfectants and
other products (such as boron,
phosphorus, sodium, ammonia and
other nitrogen based compounds).
• Dirt, lint, food, hair, body cells and fats,
and traces of faeces, urine, and blood.
Risks presented by these contaminants
can be reduced by good management
practices and by sensible use.
Manual Bucketing & Temporary
Diversion
Manual bucketing onto lawn and garden
areas using water from the bathroom or
laundry, or temporary use of a hose
manually fitted to the washing machine
outlet hose, is permitted subject to the
following advice:
• Don’t use greywater from washing
clothes soiled by faeces or vomit, for
example, nappies.
• Don’t store untreated greywater for
more than 24 hours, as bacteria and
organic contaminants in greywater will
cause it to turn septic and produce
strong and offensive odours.
• Don’t use greywater if others in the
household have diarrhoea or an
infectious disease, as this could
increase the risk of other people
becoming ill.
• Don’t use greywater to irrigate fruit,
vegetables, or areas where fruit can fall
to the ground and be eaten.
• Avoid splashing of greywater and wash
your hands before eating or drinking or
smoking.
• Keep children away from areas watered
with greywater until it has soaked into
the ground.
Chemical contaminants: detergents,
cleaners and other chemicals
• Environmentally friendly shampoos,
detergents and cleaning products
should be used to protect soil and
plants watered with grey water.
Products containing low levels of boron,
phosphorus and salt should be used.
Boron can be toxic to plants, some
native plants are sensitive to
phosphorous while sodium and other
salts can damage soil structure.
• Washing machine rinse water has lower
concentrations of detergents compared
to wash water. If wash water is used it
should be diluted with rinse water.
• Bleaches and disinfectants can kill
beneficial soil organisms and damage
plants. Avoid using greywater
containing harsh chemicals or bleaches,
or after washing out hair dye or paint
products.
• A useful website that contains
information on laundry products is
http://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au.
Sensible use
• The irrigation setback distances from
swimming pools, bores, dams,
watercourses (inc. River Murray),
buildings and boundaries must be met.
See Section 5 of the Standard for the
Construction, Installation and Operation
of Septic Tank Systems in South
Australia (Supplement B)
• Greywater tends to be slightly alkaline
and this can be harmful to acid loving
plants such as azaleas and camellias.
• Rotate greywater irrigation using mains
(drinking) or rain water, especially in
areas of low rainfall. This will help to
flush salts from the soil.
• Water several locations. This will
prevent salts and other contaminants
accumulating in the soil.
• Prevent pooling and runoff of greywater
onto other properties, into watercourses
and the stormwater system. Pooled
greywater can turn septic and produce
offensive odours.
• Don’t over-water your plants –
greywater shouldn’t be used to irrigate
more than you would with other sources
of water. Plants are susceptible to
waterlogged soil.
• Monitor areas and plants irrigated with
greywater. If there is visual evidence of
damage you may need to modify
watering practices, try a different or
bigger irrigation area, or reduce the
amount of water used.
Soils in many parts of Adelaide have a
high clay content. Clay soils tend to be
more susceptible to build up of salts and
have low permeability. Extra care should
be taken when using greywater in areas of
clay soils to avoid long term damage.
Permanent Greywater Systems
Permanent greywater systems such as
diversion devices or treatment systems, or
any device attached to plumbing, can
increase the use of greywater. However
due to potential risks associated with grey
water, permanent devices require
installation approval from your Council or
the Department of Health.
Information on permanent greywater
systems can be obtained from our
Alternative Onsite Wastewater Systems
Contact
Wastewater Management Section
Public Health
SA Health
1st floor
Citi Centre Building
11 Hindmarsh Square
Adelaide SA 5000
PO Box 6, Rundle Mall
Adelaide SA 5000
Tel 08 8226 7100
Fax 08 8226 7102
ABN 97 643 356 590
Email: public.health@health.sa.gov.au
Web: www.health.sa.gov.au/pehs/environ-
health-index.htm
© Department of Health, Government of South
Australia.
All rights reserved.
Last revised August 2008
But the real folks leading the local charge on grey water are those that actually do it and tell others about their experience. My neighbors Angelica & Sergio recently put the following in our weekly CSA e-mail:
Heard about California's water crisis? For so long we have been letting go of precious (grey) water down our home drains. Our own MANO member Pat Ferraro, former water district board director for Santa Clara Valley taught us the simple thing of saving our bath water to flush the toilet, rather than using 5-6 gallons of clean water every time we flush. Read more about water concerns at Pat's great blog http://neverthirstpatferraro.blogspot.com . As of last weekend we became true guerrillas, as we disconnected our sewer pipes in the bathroom and kitchen sinks to hold on to that water, and the washing machine too. It has made a great difference in the garden and compost piles. Read on about greywater.
What is grey water?
Greywater is water that flows down sink, shower, and washing machine drains--but not the toilet. Greywater may contain traces of dirt, food, grease, hair, and household cleaning products. While greywater may look “dirty,” it is a safe and even beneficial source of irrigation water. If released into rivers, lakes, or estuaries, the nutrients in greywater (mainly phosphate from detergent) become pollutants, but to garden plants, they are valuable fertilizer. Aside from the obvious benefits of saving water (and money on your water bill), reusing your greywater keeps it out of the sewer or septic system, thereby reducing the chance that it will pollute local water bodies Reusing greywater for irrigation reconnects urban residents and our backyard gardens to the natural water cycle.
You probably won't hear much from any public agency like San Jose or the Water District encouraging grey water reuse, because of their concern over crossing the health officials they deal with on many other issues. This is unfortunate for the people running water efficiency programs at either agency, for grey water use reduces both water demand and wastewater flow to the South Bay.
San Jose has a State-mandated flow cap on their waste(d)water discharge into the South Bay during summer months. This restriction is in place to keep salt marsh habitat from changing to fresh water marsh due to the large volume of low salinity water coming from the water pollution control plant. And when that habitat is home to two endangered species, San Jose is required to do whatever it takes to comply with the State's order.
Until this State mandate, all the engineering and economic studies that had been funded to examine the feasibility of water recycling were never able to get a positive political response from local decision makers at either San Jose or the Water District. It took a federal law, the Endangered Species Act, to move past the culture of built-in bias against water recycling at the Water District. And as long as San Jose could continue to get all the water it needed for continued growth, the City had no concern of their own about the ever increasing flow of waste(d)water to the Bay, except to make the plant capacity bigger and meet the standard discharge requirements.
All that changed when the State of California issued the order to cap the summer discharge from the San Jose-Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant at 120 million gallons per day (mgd). Today, San Jose has built 108 miles of purple pipe and pump stations which today delivers 10-15 million gallons per day of non-potable reclaimed water through a program called South Bay Water Recycling, managed by my friend and neighbor, Eric Rosenblum.
You probably won't hear much from any public agency like San Jose or the Water District encouraging grey water reuse, because of their concern over crossing the health officials they deal with on many other issues. This is unfortunate for the people running water efficiency programs at either agency, for grey water use reduces both water demand and wastewater flow to the South Bay.
San Jose has a State-mandated flow cap on their waste(d)water discharge into the South Bay during summer months. This restriction is in place to keep salt marsh habitat from changing to fresh water marsh due to the large volume of low salinity water coming from the water pollution control plant. And when that habitat is home to two endangered species, San Jose is required to do whatever it takes to comply with the State's order.
Until this State mandate, all the engineering and economic studies that had been funded to examine the feasibility of water recycling were never able to get a positive political response from local decision makers at either San Jose or the Water District. It took a federal law, the Endangered Species Act, to move past the culture of built-in bias against water recycling at the Water District. And as long as San Jose could continue to get all the water it needed for continued growth, the City had no concern of their own about the ever increasing flow of waste(d)water to the Bay, except to make the plant capacity bigger and meet the standard discharge requirements.
All that changed when the State of California issued the order to cap the summer discharge from the San Jose-Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant at 120 million gallons per day (mgd). Today, San Jose has built 108 miles of purple pipe and pump stations which today delivers 10-15 million gallons per day of non-potable reclaimed water through a program called South Bay Water Recycling, managed by my friend and neighbor, Eric Rosenblum.
Much of this water is used for irrigating green spaces, parks, athletic fields, school grounds, common areas and parkway landscaping on major thoroughfares. All this irrigation is also highly regulated by the State Health department, with a continuously cautious eye from the local health department and potablewater purveyors. The latest use of this water will be to irrigate the new community gardens at Guadalupe Parks and Gardens near the corner of Coleman Aveue and Taylor Street. Click here for flyer information.
I wanted to be among the first users of recycled water in California at one of San Jose's community gardens, so I signed up for a plot. Last week I was notified that I would have to attend two trainings as a requirement of the State Health Department for participation as a gardener using recycled water.
The first two-hour session included an introduction to recycled water and the benefits and safeguards involved with using the recycled water to grow food and flowers in our plots. After being told that a specially designed $80 "key" made of brass pipe and a standard hose bib faucet (which had to remain onsite) would be our personal responsibility, a lengthy discussion ensued concerning the security of the garden facility at night, with strong warnings especially from other gardeners who had prior experience with failed security at other community gardens centers.
This was much better than hearing concern for the safety of the water for growing food. During introductions, I mentioned that I had used water from Coyote Creek to irrigate my home gardens for 20 years. I expressed my own concern for some of the constituents of the creek water that I used may have contained chemicals that I would probably not want in my drinking water, but that the plants responded very well to a water supply that contained some plant nutrients and did not have any chlorine, which tends to inhibit growth of living things in the soil and the plants themselves.
Next week we will get assigned our plots and soon we should all be tending our 16x20 plots and growing beautiful plants for both food and flowers. Hopefully this pilot will lead to more green spaces in our urban core, as we evolve our culture to appreciate the wisdom of reusing water, whether it's greywater in our home or recycled water in the community derived from our highly treated municipal waste(d)water supply which also came from our homes and businesses.
Click here to view an award winning PBS-style video on water recycling in California called
Water in an Endless Loop
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
California Warming?
I sign many online petitions through Care2, but today I received this e-mail reply from the Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger himself:
Thank you for sharing your concerns with me about protecting California's farm workers. The safety of workers whose jobs require them to be outdoors during the hottest season of the year is truly a matter of life or death. We must do everything in our power to ensure that no other workers suffer the same fate as Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez.
We have enacted the nation's first employer regulations to prevent heat illness, and I cannot stress enough that we are taking aggressive enforcement actions and working with employers as partners. Employers must provide water and heat illness training, allow workers to take breaks in the shade and have an emergency plan if someone becomes ill. There is no excuse for failing to protect worker safety and we will prosecute employers who violate these regulations to the full extent of the law.
My administration has already conducted several hundred employer training seminars for heat illness prevention, completed several thousand surprise worksite inspections, and issued several hundreds of thousands of dollars in citations and temporary stop-work orders to employers in violation of these laws. In conjunction with the Department of Industrial Relations' Division of Occupational Safety and Health, we will continue to do so.
Again, thank you for taking the time to write and express your concerns. I am confident that by working together, we can prevent any further outdoor worker deaths.
Sincerely,
Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Farm Workers Union has their response at this link.
I don't remember hearing about farm workers dying in the fields like has tragically occurred this year. Is this another sign of global warming? If we want to be able to continue to have food harvested safely, we had better pay attention to these deaths as a warning to start doing things differently, in the fields and OFF.
So where do we Non-Farmworkers go from here?
The road we take may be determined on Nov 4th.
Mr T. Boone Pickens is trying to play Governor in California by putting, Proposition 10, an initiative, on the November ballot. He's an oil-made billionaire, our version of a sheik. He wants our cars and trucks to run on biofuels and NATURAL GAS. That's the stuff that floats on OIL fields.
Natural gas has a lower carbon footprint, but it's still a fossil fuel. And we're still buying from the same cartels. Yes, he says he supports wind and solar, but I'll wait to see if he actually invests his money, instead of $5 Billion in CA State Bonds, that will cost $10 Billion to repay.
The State expects more revenue from DMV fees and sales tax as Californians are offered incentives and rebates to encourage purchase of alternative fuel vehicles, primarily to those that run on biodiesel and natural gas. How much this would reduce our purchase of offshore oil, no one can be sure.
None of TBoone's campaign is convincing environmental organizations in California.
Proposition 7 was also financed by another billionaire, Peter Sperling, of Arizona, and whose father founded the University of Phoenix. Peter builds solar thermal power plants and wants to change the rules in California to make it easier to get permits for such plants in California.
The proposition has even more opposition than the Sheik Pickens' plan.
The League of California Voters says the following on their website:
One Pro comment that I read on the Popular Mechanics web site said this:
It is rather remarkable that California's Prop. 10 is a head scratcher. People with extraordinary resources to make change happen to be the people who will profit from an energy conversion. How is that a problem? How much do the Saudis and Iranians make on the oil they sell us? In the case of the Saudis, it costs $15 a barrel to extract oil. We're sending trillions of dollars offshore, and people want to debate the merits of a plan to replace 20 percent of these imports with natural gas. Never mind that we're fighting a war that will cost trillions before the last soldier is sent home. These are but a few of the compelling reasons to get behind NG conversion. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D., Ill.) is from a state that will benefit from a bigger push on ethanol. He has introduced a bill that would provide tax credits for the purchase of natural-gas vehicles and home-refueling systems, as well as to encourage gas stations to install natural-gas pumps. Pickens develops a plan that will save commuters millions, provide a stop-gap on global warming while reducing oil dependency as we transition to renewable fuels, and he is cast as a villain. We can probably can safely say T. Boone is not financing terrorists with the money he makes from oil and gas. If a profit has to be made -- and it does -- wouldn't it be a far sight better to have someone benefit who is not bent on our destruction. You can read more about NG use in Utah. For more on the Pickens' plan click here. From the Wall Street Journal story: "If we started moving to natural-gas vehicles in large numbers, even if we didn't go to renewables, we'd have plenty of natural gas," said Rich Kolodziej, president of Natural Gas Vehicles for America, a Washington trade association. The industry's goal is to replace 20% of the diesel used in the U.S. -- about 10 billion gallons, or 1.3 billion cubic feet -- with natural gas by 2025, Mr. Kolodziej said.
Thank you for sharing your concerns with me about protecting California's farm workers. The safety of workers whose jobs require them to be outdoors during the hottest season of the year is truly a matter of life or death. We must do everything in our power to ensure that no other workers suffer the same fate as Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez.
We have enacted the nation's first employer regulations to prevent heat illness, and I cannot stress enough that we are taking aggressive enforcement actions and working with employers as partners. Employers must provide water and heat illness training, allow workers to take breaks in the shade and have an emergency plan if someone becomes ill. There is no excuse for failing to protect worker safety and we will prosecute employers who violate these regulations to the full extent of the law.
My administration has already conducted several hundred employer training seminars for heat illness prevention, completed several thousand surprise worksite inspections, and issued several hundreds of thousands of dollars in citations and temporary stop-work orders to employers in violation of these laws. In conjunction with the Department of Industrial Relations' Division of Occupational Safety and Health, we will continue to do so.
Again, thank you for taking the time to write and express your concerns. I am confident that by working together, we can prevent any further outdoor worker deaths.
Sincerely,
Arnold Schwarzenegger
The Farm Workers Union has their response at this link.
I don't remember hearing about farm workers dying in the fields like has tragically occurred this year. Is this another sign of global warming? If we want to be able to continue to have food harvested safely, we had better pay attention to these deaths as a warning to start doing things differently, in the fields and OFF.
So where do we Non-Farmworkers go from here?
The road we take may be determined on Nov 4th.
Mr T. Boone Pickens is trying to play Governor in California by putting, Proposition 10, an initiative, on the November ballot. He's an oil-made billionaire, our version of a sheik. He wants our cars and trucks to run on biofuels and NATURAL GAS. That's the stuff that floats on OIL fields.
Natural gas has a lower carbon footprint, but it's still a fossil fuel. And we're still buying from the same cartels. Yes, he says he supports wind and solar, but I'll wait to see if he actually invests his money, instead of $5 Billion in CA State Bonds, that will cost $10 Billion to repay.
The State expects more revenue from DMV fees and sales tax as Californians are offered incentives and rebates to encourage purchase of alternative fuel vehicles, primarily to those that run on biodiesel and natural gas. How much this would reduce our purchase of offshore oil, no one can be sure.
None of TBoone's campaign is convincing environmental organizations in California.
Proposition 7 was also financed by another billionaire, Peter Sperling, of Arizona, and whose father founded the University of Phoenix. Peter builds solar thermal power plants and wants to change the rules in California to make it easier to get permits for such plants in California.
The proposition has even more opposition than the Sheik Pickens' plan.
The League of California Voters says the following on their website:
One Pro comment that I read on the Popular Mechanics web site said this:
It is rather remarkable that California's Prop. 10 is a head scratcher. People with extraordinary resources to make change happen to be the people who will profit from an energy conversion. How is that a problem? How much do the Saudis and Iranians make on the oil they sell us? In the case of the Saudis, it costs $15 a barrel to extract oil. We're sending trillions of dollars offshore, and people want to debate the merits of a plan to replace 20 percent of these imports with natural gas. Never mind that we're fighting a war that will cost trillions before the last soldier is sent home. These are but a few of the compelling reasons to get behind NG conversion. Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D., Ill.) is from a state that will benefit from a bigger push on ethanol. He has introduced a bill that would provide tax credits for the purchase of natural-gas vehicles and home-refueling systems, as well as to encourage gas stations to install natural-gas pumps. Pickens develops a plan that will save commuters millions, provide a stop-gap on global warming while reducing oil dependency as we transition to renewable fuels, and he is cast as a villain. We can probably can safely say T. Boone is not financing terrorists with the money he makes from oil and gas. If a profit has to be made -- and it does -- wouldn't it be a far sight better to have someone benefit who is not bent on our destruction. You can read more about NG use in Utah. For more on the Pickens' plan click here. From the Wall Street Journal story: "If we started moving to natural-gas vehicles in large numbers, even if we didn't go to renewables, we'd have plenty of natural gas," said Rich Kolodziej, president of Natural Gas Vehicles for America, a Washington trade association. The industry's goal is to replace 20% of the diesel used in the U.S. -- about 10 billion gallons, or 1.3 billion cubic feet -- with natural gas by 2025, Mr. Kolodziej said.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Over the River and Through the Woods
The title to this post is actually what my Naglee Park Neighbors have to do to get to Northside Theatre Company in the Olinder Center. There, they will be treated with the sweetest play I have seen there or anywhere lately. It's a stage play called Over the River and Through the Woods. This is just the perfect gift from one of our most treasured neighborhood assets, especially for this time of angst and anger so many are feeling these last few days.
It's a story about a twenty something man who spends every Sunday having dinner with his four grandparents, who live two homes apart. The cast members are perfect in their parts, with the older actors sorta losing lines just like old folks like us actually do in our own lives.
Give yourself the benefit of this gift and get your tickets while they last.
Never Thirst!
Pat
It's a story about a twenty something man who spends every Sunday having dinner with his four grandparents, who live two homes apart. The cast members are perfect in their parts, with the older actors sorta losing lines just like old folks like us actually do in our own lives.
Give yourself the benefit of this gift and get your tickets while they last.
Never Thirst!
Pat
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