How exciting!  The Texas city of  San Marcos, located near Austin has approved a greywater (graywater) ordinance that will allow greywater for toilet flushing. The city council, following in the footsteps of Austin, TX, will allow shower water, washing machine water and sink water for uses such as irrigation and TOILET FLUSHING.

Water Legacy is very pleased at the comments made by the council members, that is that their constituents have expressed a need for this.  The people do matter!!  Our conservation and efficiency demands on our government will create the grass roots efforts for continued saving of fresh water!

According to the Austin Statesman - the local newspaper - the council has added some considerations to the ordinance, but all in all it is a very good message for the water conservationists.

“In addition, the proposed ordinance stipulates that gray water must be applied in a way that prevents pooling and runoff onto other properties. Clack said the ordinance primarily targets new home construction.

“We’re encouraging builders to install new gray water plumbing,” Clack said. But there are no incentives currently planned for builders or residents, he said.

For commercial and industrial applications, gray water can only be used for landscape maintenance, dust control and toilet flushing.

Council member John Thomaides said that the ordinance is one that residents have pushed for in the past.

“Citizens have communicated to me through the years that they want to capture laundry water, mostly for gardening,” Thomaides said. “If homeowners want to use it to save aquifer water, it’s a good thing. (The ordinance) gives us the ability to tell people how to use it.”

To read the whole article, click on this link: 

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/san-marcos-to-consider-gray-water-ordinance-811895.html?cxtype=rss_local

Green Collar Research boasts the largest B2B Green Directory on the web and we are a part of the directory!

Added to the site last week, Water Legacy is the only greywater re-use system on this site. 

Follow this link to visit the site:  

http://www.greencollareconomy.com/Green_Directory/environment/water-efficiency-%26-technology/greywater-management/water-legacy/details/

Laer Pearce, one of my connections on LinkedIn, posted an article on the Water Conservation Professionals group that has definitive information that relates to Water Legacy and our mission to reduce water consumption through re-use of greywater by toilet flushing.  Over 1,100 counties in the US will face shortages of water by 2050.  After reading this article, we realize our mission may be in its infancy, because we american’s have a tendancy not to think beyond a couple of years.  So what can we do???

Greywater recycling, conservation through re-use in irrigation, eco-faucets and high efficiency plumbing are the starting blocks. However; serious efforts need to be made in municipal use, power plant cooling and industrial applications. Total water consumption is projected to increase, not decrease by 2050 by 12% for municipal use and electric cooling.  Agriculture, livestock, irrigation and mining is expected to remain relatively the same.  We can have an effect on our municipal use through greywater recycling by using our shower and washing machine water to flush our toilets. We can impact usage individually. Domestic greywater recycling has reduced our family’s overall use by at least 40%, but not everyone is married to the designer of the WL55.   

To read more about this topic visit this website: http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/watersustainability/files/WaterRisk.pdf

Mike Holmes - Holmes on Homes, a Canadian publication asserts it is time to start using grey water to flush our toilets!  DUH!   We, at Water legacy have been saying this for years.  The time has come for the regulatory agencies to start mandating the use of greywater to flush toilets. I n this article it states:            “Grey-water recycling is a technology we all need to adopt to help conserve water.”  We have the technology!  It exists and it works.  Our water bill last month for water alone was a  whopping $12.00.

View this article at http://www.holmesmagazine.com/moremike_waterways.php.

The WL55 from Water legacy saves an average household 30%-40% of its residential water consumption!  Now that is saving water

Let me know what you think.

We can add one more to the great web sites that have featured Water Legacy.  This article, written by Court Rye can be accessed by the following link: http://greenhomeauthority.com/residential-graywater-reclamation-systems/

Rob Stevens, our lone house hold in Nebraska, added this comment:

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Water Legacy, the only U.S., IAPMO approved greywater reuse system will help you earn LEED points in your residential construction.  LEED’s Water efficiency credit will gain one point for a 20% reduction in water usage and a one more point for a 30% reduction, for a total of two points. The New construction rating system v2.2 specifically states.  ” Potential Technologies and Strategies- Use high-efficiency fixtures, dry fixtures such as composting and waterless urinals, and occupant sensors to reduce potable water demand.  Consider reuse of storm water and greywater for non potable applications such as toilet flushing and urinal flushing”

When you write about something like water, you run the risk of the material being biased with your point of view. I have realized my point of view is about water, just plain old water:  Conservation, reuse, cost of energy generating clean water, availability and contamination of water   I just read an article, which I found confirms what we all know about the US.  We consume more than any other country, and of course that means we probably waste more than any country. 

We Americans are a people that are the most giving and charitable on this planet, yet we waste more than some will ever have.  You cannot give water to other nations and people in need, but you can conserve for our future.  Please check out this link http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/water-solutions/just-the-facts-water-footprints from YES magazine’s new issue to see how much we consume and think that we could save 30 to 40% of our personal residential use by recycling our greywater to flush our toilets. 

Michael Vail, CEO of Water Legacy, was a featured speaker at the IAPMO Emerging Technology Symposium last week in Ontario, California.  Mike’s presentation was a roundtable discussion on the water reuse and cost of energy.  click on this site to learn more and see when the youtube video is available http://www.iapmo.org/Pages/EmergingTechnologySymposium.aspx.

Greywater and greywater reuse present an opportunity for consumers to reduce overall energy consumption.  We often times do not value water movement associated to energy conservation.  But if you use water in your home twice, as you do with the water legacy greywater resuse system, your contribution to the carbon footprint is less.

Sometimes we get so caught up promoting our thoughts and ideas about water conservation through greywater recycling we forget others are doing the same.  Daily, I read about water conservation issues, drought situations and the people that are trying to do the same as us that I take for granted our message is mainstream.  Well, it isn’t!!!  The US government, through its Water Saver program tells us something like Water Legacy is years away from even being considered since it is still concentrating on low flow fixtures.

So, when I read the article from River Network, I was so thrilled to realize others are of the same mind set and can imagine a time when flushing drinking water is obsolete.

“Some day in the not too distant future, our practice of flushing toilets with drinking water will be viewed as being as archaic as using pigeons to carry text messages, as wasteful as sending every bottle and can to the landfill, and as disgusting as dumping raw sewage into rivers and lakes. Toilet flushing and numerous other water uses in and around the home do not require high-quality, expensive drinking water. Simple home graywater systems can meet these needs perfectly well – and dramatically reduce pressures on drinking water supplies.”

Visit http://www.rivernetwork.org/ to view the whole article. 

The book ” Toward a Zero Energy Home” by David Johnson and Scott Gibson, (ISBN 978-1-60085-143-8), prominently features the WL55.  A discussion of greywater is featured in a case study on page 55, specifically points the reader to Water Legacy by stating: “A newer product on the market, Water Legacy, disinfects water with a combination of UV and Hydrogen Peroxide.”  

In Chaper 3, Renewable Energy, the authors not only mention the WL55 and Water Legacy’s greywater reuse system, but displays two color photographs of the WL55 installed in a Zero Carbon Initiative home in Boulder, Colorado.  (page 151)

To order this book, which is a ‘Complete Guide to Energy Self Sufficiency at Home’, contact your local bookseller and request the ISBN number above or contact Taunton Press at www.taunton.com to order direct.