[ca-gw] FW: Colorado Rainwater Harvesting

Thu Mar 26 10:16:38 PDT 2009

Re LAUNDRY WATER RE-USE:

One area that I have some design and application experience with is
direct reuse of hotel laundry water for toilet flushing.  An example of
this is the Apple Farm Hotel in San Luis Obispo, where a system has been
in use for about 20 years, since the last drought of the late '80's that
drove a lot of creative applications.  In this type of system, laundry
water from linen washing is filtered and stored in a polytank, then
re-pressurized and plumbed to the rooms.  The linens are mainly white,
and they use bleach, so there is already a residual and the water is
sterile.  Sometimes there is a little foaming in the toilets, but hotel
guests are generally amused and approve of this efficient conservation
of water resources.  

I have designed several recirculating ozone laundries for hotels that
use cold water, ozone, light soap, and no chemicals, and the water is
highly suited for recycling in this way.  In this application, most of
the rinse cycles are internally recycled, and the primary wash water is
the replaced volume, but it is equally easy to filter, store, and reuse,
and is primarily from laundry of white linens.

The City & County of San Francisco is taking a lead in pursuing
graywater reuse in buildings and there are a number of parties that are
interested in not seeing this building reuse option cut out of the code,
although I think we all see the advantage of preserving a simple and
easy landscape irrigation capability for the average homeowner.  But
there is a tremendous amount of incremental water conservation/reuse to
be gained from secondary water sources used for toilet flushing, and it
is worth working on.  I think that the initial position taken by POWER
is an important statement from a credible source, and would like to
express my gratitude for taking this step.

Bill Wilson, Associate

Environmental Engineering & Sustainability

CARLILE * MACY

15 Third Street, Santa Rosa CA 95401

Tel: (707) 542-6451 Fax: (707) 542-5212

Best Places To Work   |   Northbay 2007 & 2008

wwilson at carlilemacy.com   |   www.carlilemacy.com
<http://www.carlilemacy.com/> 

________________________________

From: ca-standard-bounces at graywater.org
[mailto:ca-standard-bounces at graywater.org] On Behalf Of Otis Wollan
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 7:59 AM
To: Jon Bauer
Cc: Edward R. Osann; ca-standard at graywater.org
Subject: Re: [ca-gw] FW: Colorado Rainwater Harvesting

Two pieces (attached) of interest in this string:
First is city of Tuscon ordinance on rainwater collection, "requiring a
landscape water budget for all new commercial developments and for a
minimum of 75% of the landscape water budget be supplied by harvested
rainwater." and a declaration that "restrictions on installation of
rainwater harvest systems are invalid and unenforceable."

Second, for our gray water work, is the ordinance (same attached file
contains both ordinances) requiring gray water options in new
construction:
":All new single family and duplex or multiple residential dwelling
units shall include a diverter valve and outside 'stub-outs' on clothes
washing machine hook-ups to allow separate discharge of gray water for
direct irrigation." and, "all new single family residential dwelling
units shall include a diverter valve and outside 'stub-outs' at multiple
collection points or through central collection, to allow for future
installation of a distributed gray water system."
These ordinances, though marked "draft", were forwarded to me with
indication that they had become law; do any of us have substantiation of
this, or a copy of the final adopted version w/o edits?

Also attached is POWER's first letter to the department, addressing the
narrow topic of allowable indoor gray water technologies. Please, if
anyone is aware of additional technologies, forward that info to me.
thanks
POWER will be developing additional letters, one advocating residential
categorical exemption a la Arizona but replacing the gpd threshold with
the residential category as a whole; I've spoken with William Bennett at
EBMUD and this is their agency's strong preference as well. The third
letter will address larger CII (commercial, industrial, institutional)
systems; I'd like any information or help with this. 
thanks
be well

Jon Bauer wrote: 

Colorado is the only state in the union where the State owns the
rainwater before it even lands.  
I have heard that some counties in california have similar laws, though
I dont know how they can.  This is unconfirmed.

jon

________________________________

From: stevebilson at rewater.com
To: JJOHNSO2 at sonoma-county.org; ca-standard at graywater.org
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 08:27:12 -0700
Subject: Re: [ca-gw] FW: Colorado Rainwater Harvesting

California law is different.  It allows a person to keep their
rainwater.  In many coastal jurisdictions, new building owners are now
required to capture it and to either let it percolate or for reuse.
ReWater is selling systems that reuse it for irrigation.  Usually that
water is the supplemental water for our greywater irrigation systems.

From: ca-standard-bounces at graywater.org
[mailto:ca-standard-bounces at graywater.org] On Behalf Of James Johnson
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 7:52 AM
To: 'ca-standard at graywater.org'
Subject: [ca-gw] FW: Colorado Rainwater Harvesting

Good story in the LA Times on Rainwater Harvesting. Thanks to Matt
Gorman for sharing this.

From: Matthew Gorman [mailto:MGorman at agclawfirm.com] 
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 4:24 PM
To: James Johnson
Subject: Colorado Rainwater Harvesting

Hi, James -- I came across this article and thought it might be of
interest in your greywater work with the county.  It's not clear how
California law will address this issue as harvesting increases ... you
have probably heard stories (as have I) that it has gone either way.

Thanks

Matt

Matthew Gorman

Alvarez-Glasman & Colvin

600 Bicentennial Way, Suite 300

Santa Rosa, CA  95403

tel 707.542.4833  |  fax 707.542.4839

www.agclawfirm.com

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