April 1, 2011
Our program today was on “Grey Water”. This was certainly an April Fool’s Joke and maybe it was a real person with the name “Grey Water”! But, no on both accounts and our program was given by Darren Butler, and his topic was designing Grey Water Systems. He has taught thousands of students and has spent many years in water and soil conservation.
His actual vocational title is “Ecological Landscape and Irrigation Designer – Consulting Arborist and Landscape Consultant.
Darren first presented a slide program showing the various types of plumbing that would allow switching from the deposal of grey water to other under the sink pipes to be used in certain areas of a person’s yard.
He then explained that he has been involved with this type of plumbing for many years and meets with clients to advise them the cost of changing out their current system to the grey water system.
After the slide show his first question to the club is “how much water does your family per person use daily? The average he replied is about 150 gallons per day per person.
Question: What is Grey Water?
Answer: Anything that does not have solid material in the water.
Darren added that no one gets sick on grey water. Insects may land on the water and they may carry bacteria that could make some people ill.
Basics:
1. Grey water cannot be stored.
2. Black water is from the toilet.
3. Grey water is not for sprinklers.
4. Grey water can be used on some fruit trees.
5. You must know what is going down the drain.
6. Grey water should have minimum contact with people and pets.
He ended his explanation of grey water and it’s proper usage and then opened the program for questions from the club.
A question was raised whether grey water was legal. Answer was that it had never been illegal.
The percentage of energy. In California 70% of water is used for agriculture and industrial use. The rest is residential use.
Grey water is healthy and whatever might be in the water that is not good can be eaten up by the bacteria.
Grey water is used through out all the dry areas of the world.
To manage rainwater is a challenge. In Southern California we have six months of dry weather. You can generate grey water every day of the year.
One of the most beneficial and educational demonstrations regarding water conservation is in Santa Monica.
This was a most interesting program. We are probably all guilty to some extent of using too much water. This program gave us pause to be more conservative and careful with our water usage. Also by managing our water and designing and creating gardens with wiser plants and trees we can conserve much more water.