Gray water, also spelled as grey water, is water that already has been used domestically, commercially and industrially. This includes the leftover, untreated water generated from clothes washers, bathtubs and bathroom sinks.
As water utilities and their customers increasingly look to gray water and runoff from storms to supplement their supply amid drought, more guidelines and research are needed to ensure that the water is safe, researchers said in a report released Wednesday.
San Franciscans who want to conserve water by irrigating their yards with the runoff from their showers and bathroom sinks will no longer have to get a $250 permit or inspection from the city, under legislation introduced Tuesday by Supervisor Scott Wiener.
The last rainfall in Riverside was a windfall for Michael Hickman, a retiree who has a home project underway to use rain gutters and barrels to collect some of the precipitation that lands on his roof.
Ralph Petroff is changing the way California homes use water. As executive chairman of Nexus eWater, Petroff last week unveiled the first housing subdivision in the United States with on-site water recycling standard in every home.
Strands of silver hair fell into Annie Costanzo’s face as she wielded a sledgehammer against the brick walkway in her backyard. Plumes of dust and debris filled the air, and reddish-pink shards scattered in the wake of the 64-year-old sculptor’s latest water conservation project.
This is a follow-up post to the “One drop, a dozen options” article in the Summer 2015 Mono Lake Newsletter. The article mentions longtime Mono Lake Committee member Regina Hirsch and her business Sierra Watershed Progressive with respect to the greywater system she helped us create in 2012.
Not just during drought but even in times of normal precipitation, there is something absurd about taking precious drinking water — imported at great cost from environmentally fragile areas hundreds of miles away, pumped over the mountains using enormous amounts of energy, filtered, treated and tested so as to be safe for human consumption — and spraying it on lawns and flowers.
A Mill Valley home has been fitted with a series of pipes and valves to send shower, sink and clotheswasher graywater to landscaping in an effort to conserve limited supplies of fresh water from Mount Tamalpais and the Russian River used by Marin residents.
I like recycling. I like innovative solutions to California’s drought. … But while you’re hosing down those corn syrup barrels, why don’t you also put some thought to how you can phase out bottled water operations in California and other water-stressed areas?
In Southern California, gardens are going grey. Grey water systems that take spent water from showers, bathroom faucets and washers and use it to quench the landscape are seen by some as the next step in sustainable gardening across bone-dry Southern California.
A demonstration house unveiled in El Dorado Hills last week by national builder KB Home recycles drain water for toilets and landscaping and can power itself entirely with solar panels. … Water recycling has been gaining momentum in California’s historic drought.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an excellent overview of climate change and how it is already affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are underway to plan and adapt to climate.
In the West, it is not a matter of if a drought will occur, but when. In an effort to develop a drought-proof water supply, many communities are turning to water recycling. Water recycling is reusing treated wastewater for irrigating golf courses, other urban landscapes, some crops, wetlands enhancement, industrial processes and even groundwater recharge. But many people do not understand how water is treated, recycled and reused, causing some to oppose new projects.
As the state’s population continues to grow and traditional water supplies grow tighter, there is increased interest in reusing treated wastewater for a variety of activities, including irrigation of crops, parks and golf courses, groundwater recharge and industrial uses.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to California Wastewater is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication that provides background information on the history of wastewater treatment and how wastewater is collected, conveyed, treated and disposed of today. The guide also offers case studies of different treatment plants and their treatment processes.
Gray water, also spelled as grey water, is water that already has been used domestically, commercially and industrially. This includes the leftover, untreated water generated from clothes washers, bathtubs and bathroom sinks.
This water source is a common way to recycle water and stretch urban water supplies. As part of this, gray water ‘harvesting’ (the collecting of gray water from sinks, showers, etc.) is increasingly popular, especially as a way to flush toilets.
