Replies

1. 
   Remodeler | Jul 28, 2003 07:39pm | #1

   Maybe search the 'net for gray water systems.  A lot of people use cisterns and dual sewage systems for sink/bath water.

   remodeler

2. 
   Ethos | Jul 28, 2003 08:22pm | #2

   Hi Seth-

   I'm Lance.  I live on a ditch in Albuquerque.  Our lot is level and we get 100% coverage by gravity, but later in the season, we either get reduced ditch irrigation or, I suppose none, if things stay as dry as they are.

   Considering these things lead me to design a graywater system that will allow us to reuse our domestic graywater to water atleast our trees.  Now, this is different from what you're considering but the system I designed to filter and pressurize  the graywater is directly applicable for your needs.

   The system consists of two buried HDPE vaults about 35 gal. each.  The first, houses a high-volume filter designed to filter septic efflent (or in your case, ditchwater) down to 1/8" particulates.  The second, houses a float-actuated pump.  From the pump, the water is then filtered  again by a run of the mill drip irrigation filter.  From there, the water is then distributed by drip to the plants.  The system can be run manually or by a controller.

   It seems that it'd be straightforward to collect the ditch into a 4" lateral and deliver it to the filter vault positioned on the downhill side of the ditch.  From there, the filtered water gravities to the pump vault and so on .

   If you're interested in the specifics let me know.  

   Lance 

1. 
   Seth_Frankel | Jul 29, 2003 02:46am | #5

   Thanks, Lance.

   It's been suggested that I include a sand separator as a means of pulling out the heavy stuff. I imagine that a multi-stage approach is warranted. First fairly open screen in the ditch (say 1/4" mesh). Most of the stuff that comes through the hoses now is plant material and little twiggy things. Not so much sand or heavy stuff. I'm wondering exactly how often I'll be cleaning filters, dumping sand. I'm also imagining that a much larger cistern will be needed than the your system. Imagine 10 gallons a minute for 1.5 hours. That's 900 gallons. It will certainly take some engineering to understand the supply available in order to size the cistern properly.

   Wish me luck!

   Seth"Nothing is a

   mistake. There is no win

   and there is no fail . . . there is only

   make."

   John Cage

1. 
   Ethos | Jul 29, 2003 05:32am | #8

   Seth-

   The vaults in my system do not act as storage, they filter and pump large volumes of water.  The system I described would work if there was a constant flow from the ditch into the filter vault and so into the pump vault.

   Lance

3. 
   BillHartmann | Jul 28, 2003 09:12pm | #3

   You might start here.

   http://www.jessstryker.com/

   But why do you want to go with a sprinker system instead of an "irrigation system".

   Why know do what you are doing know with the hoses, but rather put in pipes and vlave and timer and then just let it pool near the plants.

1. 
   Seth_Frankel | Jul 29, 2003 02:39am | #4

   Bill,

   Thanks for the link. Useful information, but not so much about cisterns. I may ask Mr. Styker the same question.

   Did I say "Sprinkler"? I mean an overall irrigation system including sprinklers and drip.

   As to why not flood irrigate, it's not a realistic option given the layout of the land and terracing. Hey, I'm not growing rice here!

   Thanks.

   Seth"Nothing is a

   mistake. There is no win

   and there is no fail . . . there is only

   make."

   John Cage

4. 
   Gabe | Jul 29, 2003 03:33am | #6

   Other than a hundred ways to do what you propose I would have the holding tank underground at the lowest point on the lot, near your house. Gather water from your roof area as well as gravity feed from the ditch. Only use power to water as needed.

   Curious though about something................If water is not in great supply......is there not a chance that the water flowing through your land would become state or municipal property if it flowed into any kind of a reservoir or lake or river?

   In some jurisdictions, water flowing in ditches, creeks, rivers cannot be interferred with or restricted in any way.

   Just curious.

   Gabe

1. 
   Seth_Frankel | Jul 29, 2003 07:05am | #9

   Gabe,

   Water laws are complicated and differ according to locale. In the west, unlike the east, rights to water are sold in shares and work in a seniority system. Each water owner on a particular source is allocated a portion of the entire flow and that flow goes to the oldest owners first. This is why in drought years some ditches are dry early and others run all summer. As far as individual share ownership is concerned, there three aspects to the usage of water rights. A share holder is allocated water 1.) in amount, 2.) in location and 3.) in time. One of the key differences in the west (versus the eastern US) is that having the water flow through your property does not mean you have any rights to that water. Much of the west's water laws were brought the US via Mexico and Spain (where conditions are similiar). The east is more like the laws of England (not coincidental at all).

   Indeed, much of the water that flows through my ditch are owned by the City of Boulder (for municipal water) as well as the University of Colorado (used for irrigation). In fact the COB has their ownership to the water 30 miles upstream at the resevior and the water never even enters the ditch. As it happens to be, my ditch is the 10th most senior water right in the county (which has over 2000 water rights)

   I personally own shares of the water as the result of over a hundred years of home owners transferring the rights to the next owners. This right to ownership is first offered to the owner of the property and if not purchased, back to the ditch company.

   In otherwords, unless I don't pay may shareholder payments or have the rights somehow taken from me (which nearly never happens as water rights and laws are some of the most tight and defendable and oldest in the west) my rights to the water are virtually guaranteed if water is present.

   Hope that's useful and possibly even correct in whole, if not part.

   Water off the roof? Not in this decade!

   Thanks, Seth"Nothing is a

   mistake. There is no win

   and there is no fail . . . there is only

   make."

   John Cage

   Edited 7/29/2003 12:25:47 AM ET by Seth Frankel

1. 
   Gabe | Jul 30, 2003 02:09am | #13

   I thank you. I've learned a little something about the value of water.

   Gabe

5. 
   hasbeen | Jul 29, 2003 04:55am | #7

   I am a rural Colorado real estate broker.  I'm NOT an attorney, nor am I a Colorado water law expert (very, very few attorneys can even claim that status).

   I recommend that you be very cautious about this.  My understanding is that ditch rights do NOT allow storage of water unless the decree specifically allows it (highly unlikely in your situation).  To store the ditch water legally, you would have to go to water court for a change of use.  That would certainly be expensive, time consuming, and could cause a loss of at least a percentage of your water rights.

   I recommend talking to a water attorney.  Boulder has one of the best IMO:  Bob Krassa.  Be forewarned:  It might cost $5,000 to have an initial consultation with Mr. Krassa.  Of course, other attorneys might be less costly.  Again IMO, Mr. Krassa is one of the very best.

   I'd recommend taking a good look at the value of your property.  Then you might want to consider how much the proposed project would cost, with or without legal proceedings...

   Good luck!  And if you ever think of it, let me know what happens.  I'm very interested in such cases.

   Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.

1. 
   Seth_Frankel | Jul 29, 2003 07:17am | #10

   Well that's an interesting thought. Indeed storage *is* an issue, but to the best of my understanding and knowing many owners of ditch rights, storage in quantities we're talking about (a few hundred gallons at most for the purposes primarily of filtration) aren't the kind of quantities or usage that are problematic. To take this to the extreme, my hoses *store* several gallons of water as part of the nature of creating a siphon (I said "extreme", right?). I can't imagine that ownership rules governing individual share owners are written so that it's not possible to properly move one's water successfully, but it's worth asking about before installing such a system. Even a direct pump from the ditch w/o a cistern still involves a tank with the pump.

   As you know, many, many folks in this are using ditch water for irrigation and do this exact same thing. Whether they are "proper" uses or not, according the letter of the ownership, I do not know.

   Notheless, you've given me pause and raised and interesting issue. I'll let you know the upshot.

   By the way, Hasbeen, we're talking about Boulder. Value of property? Pish. - kidding.

   Thanks.

   Seth

   "Nothing is a

   mistake. There is no win

   and there is no fail . . . there is only

   make."

   John Cage

1. 
   hasbeen | Jul 29, 2003 05:00pm | #11

   I didn't say that nobody would do it.  I didn't even say that I wouldn't do it!  ;)

   I'm told that with continuing growth and water worries that the State may begin to enforce water rules that haven't been enforced up to now.

   I used to live up on the Gross Dam Road by the tracks on the Coal Creek side (more than 20 years ago).  Had to leave because of all the growth...  ;)

   My oldest best friend got his picture on the front page of the Daily Camera last friday:  the UPS driver consoling the crying woman.  Some guys'll come up with any excuse to....Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.

6. 
   SamT | Jul 30, 2003 02:02am | #12

   Here is the system I would use in your situation. BTW, this is a long post.

   The ditch owner has a maintenance right of way and you can not build on the RoW. Probably 10'-12' from waters edge. your deed will tell you. start your work a couple feet past that.

    excavat your system like the drawing below

    RoW= :      Ditch bank=  | |        Ditch= |~~|

   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                              :||~~||
                  -----------|:||~~||
      -----------|           |:||~~||
      |                      |:||~~||
      -----------|           |:||~~||
        ^         -----------|:||~~||
        |             ^       :||~~||
      Trench          | 
                     Pit 

                                      NOT TO SCALE

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   The Pit will hold your filter and storage, the trench will be backfilled after you push the feeder pipe into the ditch.

   Ideally the water level in the ditch is high enough to topfeed the filter. this way you will only have to put a cut off valve and a float valve on the end of the feeder pipe. I will info you re: other wise if you ask. The advantages are cost and ease of cleaning the filter.

   build the filter and storage as a double tank with standard CMU constructon techniques on a 6" concrete slab with rebar. Except that the bottom course of CMU's of the devider wall alternate laying sideways and laying standard (vertical.) fill all voids except the voids in the sideways CMU's.

   On the day the backhoe is there digging the pit have him push the feeder pipe into the ditch at about the elevation of the next to the top row of CMU's. You can notch around it as you build. The ditch owner may require a marker post at the water side of the pipe, have the backhoe drive a 4x4 RW into the mud there for you.

   Water proof the insides of your tanks well.

   On the pit side, cover the sideways voids with a layer of galvy stucco mesh. fill the pit 1' deep with 1 1/2"-2 1/2" broken gravel. cover gravel with landscape cloth, fill to 6" below feeder pipe with coarse filter sand, place a paver under the float valve  to prevent erosion of the sand.

   Design the size of the tanks so that in the future you can dig out the sand without too much effort, or work on the walls of either side.

   Theory of operation: Water flows into the filter thru the float valve keeping it from over flowing, down thru the sand into the gravel, across the gravel , thru the sideways CMU's into the collection/storage/pump tank.

   If you do the work yourself, I would ballpark this at about, aproximately, almost $2500, including material and backhoe.

   SamT

   "Law reflects, but in no sense determines the moral worth of a society.... The better the society, the less law there will be. In Heaven, there will be no law, and the lion will lie down with the lamb.... The worse the society, the more law there will be. In Hell, there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed."

   Grant Gilmore, The Ages of American Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 110-111.
   From 32866.117