GoingGreen and Going Gray: Watching California's Graywater Recycling Standards Take Hold
At last week’s GoingGreen West 2009 conference the issue of water -- safe, clean, reliable water sources to be exact -- got a good deal of attention. Maybe because, despite the heavy fog that was wrapped around the Golden Gate Bridge, California labors through its third straight year of drought?
The panel “The Water Grid & Water Markets” covered a variety of current and very cool near-future technologies. From water quality IT dashboards (IBM) to off grid, mini-desalination plants (Energy Recovery) to subsurface water storage (Schlumberger Water Services), there’s a plethora of solutions available and emerging that address the growing water crisis. It’s clear that the biggest challenges are not great new ideas or innovations but rather finding ways to lower costs and leverage public policy to drive adoption.
One technology that I’ve been coming back to is on-site water recycling. “Gray” or wastewater recycling systems are nothing new; however, the process traditionally has received fairly lousy PR. Often likened to sewage, grey water actually comes from showers, dishwashers and other household sanitation, except the toilet. Graywater is an important part of solving the crisis, but like all things water related, California struggles with graywater provisions. Expensive systems, low rebates and restrictive mandates have resulted in fewer than 10 residential systems permitted and legally installed in Los Angeles every year.
Hopefully that is changing. In late July the Department of Housing and Community Development’s (HCD) Codes and Standards Division announced the adoption of the state’s new graywater standards. If successful, these new standards could make it easier for systems to be implemented and safe water be reused. According to the HCD, these systems can help a family of four reduce its annual water consumption by 22,000 gallons of water--from the laundry system alone.
With countries like China practicing well-established regulations of water reclamation for hotels, institutions and schools for years, the US seems behind the curve yet again in our water use practices. However, California’s HCD new standards are helping lower the cost of greywater systems and encouraging adoption, and seem to be a big step in the right direction. We’ll have to keep an eye on them in the coming months to see how the program takes hold.
Posted by Erin DelLlano on September 22, 2009 at 12:51 PM
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