[ca-gw] Timeline/strategy!

[Sonia Diermayer]

This is great, Steve! It seems that DHCD must be getting a flood of  
response.
We should firmly insist that they lengthen the timeline to do  
aggressive revision.
Otherwise (as per Art's strategy email yesterday) we will work to  
block approval at CA  Stds Comm, and/or push for new legislation.


On Apr 24, 2009, at 5:56 AM, Steve Bilson wrote:

> If you happen to have come across any recent studies on greywater  
> where they
> realized greywater does not breed pathogens but does breed the  
> coliform
> indicators that would show such is happening in sewage, like the  
> study I
> quote below from British researchers R. Burke and S. Hills, please  
> let me
> know immediately.
>
>
> EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
>
> The draft greywater code submitted by the Department of Housing and
> Community Development dated 4/14/09 is fatally flawed in many ways  
> and must
> be revised.
>
> The draft code fails to adopt critical sections of the existing  
> California
> greywater irrigation code that this state invested thousands of man- 
> hours to
> adopt previously in order to facilitate practical greywater
> irrigation/reuse/use systems, not disposal systems; it disregards  
> the prime
> directives of its enabling legislation, SB1258, and enabling  
> statute, Health
> and Safety Code Section 17922.12, by disregarding old and recent  
> science on
> greywater, what other jurisdictions are now doing regarding greywater
> irrigation, and the wealth of science on the lack of impacts on human
> health; restricts greywater irrigation in numerous ways that  
> provide no
> benefits; adds layers of superfluous costs that provide no benefit;
> illegally contradicts existing state law, Water Code Section  
> 14877.3, which
> gives only elected city councils and county boards of supervisors the
> authority after a public hearing to restrict the state code by  
> ordinance;
> confuses, complicates, and muddles the permitting process to the  
> point where
> even the state's most seasoned greywater irrigation permit expert  
> can't
> figure out  how to possibly obtain a permit for a home system in a
> reasonable time or at an even nearly reasonable cost and with the  
> system he
> perfected through millions of dollars in field experience and has  
> sold under
> existing state law since 1994, at all; violates Government Code  
> Sections
> 11346.2 and 11346.3 numerous times and in numerous ways; violates  
> Government
> Code Section 11346.5(7)&(12) by DHCD failing to make an initial
> determination that it may have a significant statewide adverse  
> economic
> impact directly affecting business and housing costs; violates the  
> Equal
> Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the US and California
> Constitutions; and violates the letter and spirit of Article X  
> Section 7 of
> the California Constitution regarding water conservation, all to the
> detriment of the people and environment of California.
>
> The draft code is a disservice to the people and environment of  
> California
> and presenting it to the CBSC as presently written would be a  
> complete waste
> of taxpayer's money as it is doomed to failure there due to  
> egregious and
> numerous violations of Health & Safety Code Sections 18930
> (A)(1),(2),(3),(4),(5),(6),(7a). There is no statutory, regulatory,
> administrative, or even common sense reason to proceed with this  
> draft.  If
> the triennial adoption process for the model code must proceed, it  
> will have
> to proceed without Chapter 16.
>
> ReWater is fully committed to continue working with DHCD to make  
> the changes
> to the state greywater irrigation code that California has needed  
> for well
> over a decade, and to insuring that DHCD revises this draft code to  
> make the
> changes that California has needed for well over a decade.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Chapter 16
> NONPOTABLE WATER REUSE SYSTEMS
>
> Part I
>
> 1601.0 Gray Water Systems - General.
>
> (A.1) [HCD 1] The provisions of this part shall apply to the  
> construction,
> alteration, and repair of graywater systems. The graywater system  
> shall not
> be connected to any potable water system without an air gap and  
> shall not
> result in surfacing of graywater.  Graywater installations with a  
> discharge
> of more than 250 gallons per day shall be designed by a person  
> acceptable to
> the Enforcing Agency.  The Enforcing Agency may further restrict or  
> prohibit
> entirely the use of graywater pursuant to Health and Safety Code  
> Section
> 18941.7.
>
> This section has several flaws, which are addressed in the order  
> they are
> found in the section.
>
> State law pursuant to AB313 in 1995 revised the state greywater  
> irrigation
> code to allow fresh water connections to a greywater irrigation  
> system if
> that connection was protected by either an air gap or other  
> device.  The
> only "other device" allowed by the Department of Health Service for  
> such
> fresh water protection is a Reduced Pressure Principle Device (RP).
>
> That code section was changed to allow fresh water to backwash sand  
> filters,
> the only type of automatic filter known to the irrigation industry  
> to be
> able to filter greywater fine enough for drip irrigation. That  
> change was
> codified because many jurisdictions throughout the state understood  
> that air
> gaps are often reconnected by homeowners after the agency's  
> inspection of
> the system due to the fact that air gaps allow animals and insects  
> into the
> greywater tank, causing expensive pump failure, because air gaps cause
> splash, which can cause expensive repairs to stucco and other  
> surfaces, and
> because air gaps defeat the code requirement that the tank be  
> sealed.  Many
> jurisdictions knew that the use of RPs and the annual Title 17  
> inspection
> required for such devices provides a far safer permanent method of
> protection for the water supply.  DHCD has provided no facts or  
> rationale to
> mitigate or contradict the underlying finding for that code  
> provision, and
> thus the abrogation of that language in this section threatens the  
> health
> and safety of the state.
>
> Another reason the state greywater law was revised in 1995 to allow  
> fresh
> water connections to be protected by either an air gap or other  
> device was
> the fact that without fresh water as a supplement to a greywater  
> irrigation
> system, in times of need such as when the building is not producing
> greywater because the occupants are not present, a greywater  
> irrigation
> system is not a viable irrigation system.  Without supplemental  
> fresh water
> in a greywater drip irrigation system, a completely separate  
> irrigation
> system is needed that can connect to the fresh water supply in  
> order for the
> landscaping to be maintained, which essentially doubles the cost of
> irrigation.  Note:  It is ironic that sprinkler systems using fresh  
> water
> are the well documented leading cause of non-point source water  
> pollution in
> Southern Califorina, but they are legal.
>
> DHCD has provided no facts or rationale to mitigate, contradict, or  
> abrogate
> the underlying finding for that code provision allowing RPs, and  
> thus the
> removal of that language adds completely redundant and absolutely
> unreasonable costs to the costs already related to a greywater  
> irrigation
> system under this code.  For these reasons, this section violates  
> Government
> Code Section 11346.2 and other statutes and regulations.
>
> Further, the language of this proposed draft code where it states that
> "greywater installations with a discharge of 250 gallons per day  
> shall be
> designed by a person acceptable to the Enforcing Agency" allows,  
> encourages,
> and perpetuates discrimination against persons for no state sanctioned
> reason.  Nothing good can come from language allowing a government  
> employee
> to arbitrarily discriminate against somebody they don't like.  Such  
> language
> is dangerous to civil society and is prohibited by the Equal  
> Protection
> Clause of the 14th Amendment to the California and US Constitutions  
> as well
> as various state and federal Civil Rights statutes and case law.
>
>
> (B.1) [HCD 1] The type of system shall be determined by the location,
> discharge capacity, soil type, and ground water level.  The system  
> shall be
> designed to accept all graywater connected to the system discharged  
> from the
> building. The system may include holding tank(s) and other  
> appurtenances, as
> required by the Enforcing Agency.
>
> The language in this section requiring "the location, discharge  
> capacity,
> soil type, and ground water level" to be used to determine the type of
> system installed under this code, and the language requiring that "all
> greywater connected to the system discharged from the building" is  
> sewage
> disposal code language right out of UPC Appendix K.  Nobody  
> including DHCD
> has provided evidence that greywater has nearly the threat as  
> sewage to the
> public's health and safety when used in an above-ground drip  
> irrigation
> system that by its very nature spreads the water around a property and
> slowly releases it at hundreds of points, at a low rate of  
> application, as
> needed to support plant life, as regulated by an electronic  
> controller,
> without the time consuming and expensive process required to  
> satisfy the
> sewage disposal criteria also found in this same code section and  
> throughout
> the code.  This sewage disposal language defeats the purpose of this
> irrigation code.  The last 14 years have proven that to be the case.
>
> The overwhelming body of scientific evidence, both public and private,
> includes the fact that the US Center for Disease Control in Atlanta  
> Georgia,
> which is statutorily required to investigate and report on disease  
> outbreaks
> and has reported on the origins of hundreds of thousands of such  
> outbreaks
> over decades, has not linked one outbreak to a greywater system,  
> whether
> legal or not.  This extensive and long history of the US Government's
> premier health service investigations is not a bunch of anecdotal  
> tales to
> be summarily thrown out by skeptics, it is definitive proof that  
> greywater
> is benign.
>
> The problem with the old-school health specialists is they don't even
> understand the basic difference between sewage and greywater and  
> they try
> explain greywater using what they know about sewage, and thus they  
> continue
> to be grossly inaccurate.  They use sewage studies, that use fecal  
> coliform
> counts to indicate the potential amount of human pathogens in  
> sewage, to
> predict the potential human pathogens in greywater.   The problem  
> with that
> approach is it isn't even close to accurate because coliforms in  
> greywater
> tanks have the ability to multiply and do multiply there, whereas  
> human
> pathogens in greywater tanks do not multiply.
>
> Most of the new school scientists, like R. Burke and S. Hills, in  
> their 2006
> study entitled Characterisation of Indicator Organisms and  
> Pathogens in
> Domestic Greywater for Recycling, recognize that "high levels of  
> indicator
> organisms did not correlate to pathogen presence and should not be  
> used as
> pathogen indicators in greywater". By either not locating this recent
> science or by summarily discarding it, DHCD has disregarded the
> legislature's intent to modernize the greywater code by essentially
> reverting back to the model code that was written by plumbers whose  
> only
> concern and knowledge base is sewage disposal.
>
> The general population over the last 14 years has thoroughly  
> rejected the
> current state greywater irrigation code, which contains extensive
> modifications to the plumber's model code to facilitate drip  
> irrigation.
> They have rejected the code because on top of its underground drip
> irrigation criteria, it also requires sewage disposal criteria.  
> That current
> with its redundant sewage disposal requirements has thus been the  
> cause of
> many people installing greywater irrigation systems that do not  
> even attempt
> to comply with the code.  That current code is the reason there is a
> thriving underground greywater irrigation industry.  Those un- 
> permitted
> systems range from laundry machines dumping greywater onto the  
> surface out
> the end of a hose, which is by far the most common version, to systems
> complying with the code in all aspects except for a permit.
>
> Yet, as evidenced by exhaustive data from the US Center for Disease  
> Control
> that fails to link greywater to any outbreak of disease over  
> decades of
> monitoring and reporting on such outbreaks, DHCD refuses to admit that
> decades of uncontrolled greywater use on the surface indicates that
> greywater isn't safe enough to use on the surface in a drip irrigation
> system that by its nature eliminates the ponding and run-off  
> required by the
> environmental health community.
>
> The only thing the current greywater irrigation code and its redundant
> sewage disposal criteria his accomplished is to make legal greywater
> irrigation too expensive for anyone but the richest .001% of the  
> state. This
> section's continuation of the requirement for sewage disposal  
> criteria on
> top of irrigation criteria places an unnecessary financial burden  
> on the
> people of the State of California and is a violation of .
>
> This section requiring sewage disposal criteria on top of drip  
> irrigation
> criteria also contradicts the direction implicitly and explicitly  
> found in
> SB1258 where it directs DHCD to understand why the recent greywater
> irrigation codes in other states do not require such sewage disposal
> criteria for residential greywater irrigation systems.
>
> This disregard by DHCD for the overwhelming lack of evidence showing
> greywater not to be a threat when used in a drip irrigation system  
> is an
> unreasonable approach to water conservation and encourages the use  
> of fresh
> water for irrigation.  Thus, this requirement also violates Article X
> Section 7 of the California Constitution which "requires that the  
> water
> resources of the State be put to beneficial use to the fullest  
> extent of
> which they are capable, and that the waste or unreasonable use or
> unreasonable method of use of water be prevented, and that the  
> conservation
> of such waters is to be exercised with a view to the reasonable and
> beneficial use thereof in the interest of the people and for the  
> public
> welfare".
>
> Unfinished from here on...
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ca-standard-bounces at graywater.org
> [mailto:ca-standard-bounces at graywater.org] On Behalf Of
> rwhitson at berkeley.edu
> Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2009 10:41 PM
> To: ca-standard at graywater.org
> Subject: [ca-gw] (no subject)
>
> Hi
>
> I'm Rose Whitson, a student at UC Berkeley. I'm currently doing a  
> class
> project on the graywater legislation process, on the state and campus
> level, and I'd like your permission to utilize the information from  
> this
> mailing list (I've been following it all).
>
> If any of you have objections or things you would like me to add,  
> please
> let me know. I'm scheduled to present on Thursday, so please let me  
> know
> sometime before then.
>
>
> That being said, if there's anything I can do to help with the state
> legislation process (other than previously mentioned tactics of  
> contacting
> politicians and the like), please let me know.
>
> Good luck on Monday's meeting (I've class, so I'm afraid I can't  
> attend)
>
> -Rose
>
>
>
>
>
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