BIG WATER
AFTERWARDS
As you have probably seen or read, California is getting soaked by the "Pineapple Express." Though the rain has created problems it is a beginning to make up the deficits of three years of drought. There is still a long way to go.
I wonder why communities who have been plagued by water shortages do not take more seriously the idea of rainwater capture or harvest. Many of our Cambria neighbors have done so on a personal basis. Still, hundreds of thousands of gallons are washing away. These photos were taken hours after the last rain.
Just in this one half block water flows away from the Pacific, down hill and away from potential use in a gray water system. A French drain, perimeter drain and/or system of storm drain cisterns could harvest millions of gallons to be pumped for treatment or re-injection into the new multi-million dollar brackish water desalination plant.
Living through drought ought to sensitize us to a more prudent utilization of a precious resource-don't you think?
See you down the trail.
It looks wet over there. Great photos of the surf, though. Gayle was in a boat off of Kona, Hawaii, yesterday and said the surf crashing on the black lava coast was sensational. They flew home today.
ReplyDeleteYour pictures marvelously capture the power and majesty of the ocean. Too bad that precious water isn't put to use somehow.
ReplyDeletePrivate gray water systems here have a ways to go before they get friendly reactions from building permit offices. However, over many years of rural living, I've found many ingenious methods of reclaiming household gray water among fellow hicks. Water from sinks, washing machines, showers is diverted before it reaches the septic system and is leached under gardens, even pumped to distant woody ends of properties. All useful, all under the radar of building codes. For cities to enact essentially the same methods as standard conservation will take a lot of doing. They can't collect punitive revenue from people doing what cities would be doing, so they don't do it. Stuck to the axles.
ReplyDelete"Ought to" is right, Tom. Geez, what does it take?
ReplyDeleteJoni Mitchel was right, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." Here in Iowa, our sump pumps run in the spring. Up to 10 gallons is discharged per cycle as often as every 10 minutes on wetter week. Hmm. That's 8,400 gallons per week. Holy Hydroponic, Batman!!
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