Here’s another from the CCGT:
Cisterns are connected to the building downspouts to catch rainwater and reduce the amount of water flowing into the sewers. The captured water is used for irrigation. The four cisterns on the property have a 12,000 gallon water storage capacity.
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like this:
Hey, I'm not sure I understand why this is so environmentally helpful. Seems to me the water still goes into the ground, and eventually the aquafer anyways, doesn't it?
Seems like the bigger issue would be what you do with the water, not the fact that it gets stored in a cistern instead of the aquafer. I guess you save the electricity to pump it up out of the ground, but besides that, what's the point?
what's the point?
Reducing runoff, avoiding a well. There are also areas that don't have a sufficient aquifer to soak up rain, necessitating collection.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
What ecological problrms does runoff cause?
"What ecological problrms does runoff cause?"Well flooding is the most direct and immediate problem.But is also washes off all kinds of lawn chemicals, oil off streets, etc into the the streams.And in some older areas where there are combined storm/sanitary sewers it overloads the treatment plants and causes untreated sewage to be released.
Okay, well the flooding thing I can see.
But when you say oil and chemicals pollute the streams, something bothers me about that. I mean, isn't that really a problem with using those toxins in the first place? How can it be better for those same toxins to seep slowly into the ground than into the streams? It's poison either way, right?
Yes and no.Many things like lawn fertilzer and animal droppings are OK on the lawn where they will nourish the lawn and the animal droppins will breakdown.
A problem is runoff carrying chemicals, particularly from parking lots, to rivers.
Here, in small city area, we have major pollution of rivers from fertilizer runoff. That isn't from farms, very few field crops here. It's suburban lawns that are over-fertilized.
Concentration is the problem. If those fertilizers were left in suburban lawns there's little effect. Same for the oils in parking lots.
Better without? Of course.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
(and Bill) See there? That's exactly the type thing I keep trying to get to the bottom of. In my mind, a lot of the arguements I here for this technique, or that, seem like damage control. In this case, controlling how much of this fertilizer and oil gets into the water. Instead they just work down into the ground where eventually they will get to the concentrated levels that they will become a problem, runoff or no runoff.
It seems like we have used dangerous materials for a very long time and kind of hid our heads in the sand "...not in my lifetime...", or "...it doesn't seem to be hurting anything..." type thinking.
I understand it. I catch myself thinking that way on a pretty regular basis. But the truth is, all we have to do is look at the lakes in Maine, polluted from years of papermill and tanning industries to remind us of the (not very) longterm effects of even a little pollution. What have I heard about digging up several feet of lead contaminated soil in New Englad before it's safe for a new building.
I don't know squat about lawn fertilizer hazzards. This is the first conversation I've had about them. But WTF? How the do we mandate seatbelt laws, and then allow the unregulated product that has the potential to poison our water?
Seriously. Doesn't there seem to be something wrong with that picture?
The "hazard" of fertizler run off is not in the toxicity of the ferlizer, but rather that it can encourage growth of algee that then upset the life cycle of other planst/animals in the streams. But there are hazards in some of the insecticde/herbicdes chemicals, specially in ag areas. But there has been a lot of work in controlling those.But there are LOTS of chemicals that are useful and helpful in some areas, but when not properly controlled can cause problems.One of the most common dangerous chemicals is Dihydrogen Monoxide.http://www.dhmo.org/environment.htmlSurely you have seen the ravageous that DHMO can cause on a house when you have been remodeling. But in it's proper place DHMO is not only usefull, but necessary.DHMO is more commonly know as WATER.You can say the same thing about anything and everything that you touch.
I'm not understanding your example Bill. You are comparing water to fertilizer?
Water is here whether we want it or not.
Fertilizer is a chemical we MAKE and use because it's convenient for us.
Didn't you say earlier that runoff can cause high levels of fertilizer and oil to be transported into and contaminate fresh water supplies? That it promotes certain algae growth that damages the ecosystem? But it's that danged runoff transporting that fertilizer that's the culprit?
What happens over a few hundred years to the soil that's been fertilized regularly? Does the water that works down through it carry the same type algae changing potential? What difference does it make if that stuff gets into the water supply in a hurry or slowly? It's just a matter of time, isn't it?
"It's like peeing in the ocean"?
Bill's correct about fertilizer runoff. Primarily a problem for watermen, a very well established tradition in Va. And one not taken lightly. But there are areas of the midwest where you cannot drill a well and get acceptable drinking water. Agriculture runoff (run through) is generally blamed. Concentrations did get into the aquifer, just as you suggest. If that was the case here, I'd leave. Or maybe install a collection system, but rain's not all that great. It's no accident we live on a mountain with no neighbors. And I still use nitrocellulose lacquer.
Remember when that Ohio river actually caught on fire?
The problem with trying to ban everything remotely harmful to the environment is that you're not going to be successful. Partly 'cause quantity makes for very strong arguments. But mostly due to the fact that though the education process has been going on for a great many years, there still aren't that many listening. Take a look at any parking lot or subdivision.
To change the subject slightly but along the same lines, you've said very complimentary things about my approach to housing. In the alternative architecture community I generally get chastized for using excessive concrete (or any at all). As in, there are other less harmful methods to get at least as good a result. They have a point. Not one that's going to change the way I'm doing things.
To take an absolute viewpoint strikes me as counter-productive. And a great many of my critics live in conventional housing (talk big, think small, do nothing). What I strive for is a balance between what works for me and the amount of harm I'm doing. Each of us can only view opposing opinions and try to figure out where we, individually, fit in. Always room for improvement.
I felt a little guilty giving away some commercial plant fertilizer recently, but I didn't know what to do with it. Certainly not going to use it here. The recipient was delighted. Runoff wasn't the issue, dirt ecology was. I've learned a lot since I bought that bag.
That's where history comes in. I grew up with DDT being sprayed on residential yards. We were advised to be inside. At the time, it was clearly the thing to do. And now I'm reading about methylmercury in fish but that the fatty acids like DHA provides such significant benefit that the not-well-established risks are over-balanced. For pregnant women in particular (Harvard School of Public Health). A future study may not agree.
I'm not going to obsess. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
"That's where history comes in. I grew up with DDT being sprayed on residential yards. We were advised to be inside. At the time, it was clearly the thing to do."And how they are starting to use DDT agin specificaly for spraying inside houses.That it can drastically reduce malaria problems. And when used inside does not affect birds (which was overblown ot start with).
The other issue with water coming off your roof is that it is often quite a bit hotter than water that is allowed to cool and seep through the ground water table and then enter streams. Spawning fish are sensitive to the temperature of the water and when you have a city upstream of a river that contributes all the rainfall on all the roofs of all the houses to a river that river can have a significant temperature change.Just another reason to invest in a rain barrel or rain garden.
When water filters through the ground, lots of the potential pollutants are absorbed in the soil (where they're likely to degrade harmlessly). If it runs off, it carries the pollutants with it (and also carries some soil).
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. --Mahatma Gandhi
Bill answered well.
When we lived in Denver we got a sizeable bill every year for storm water runoff as we had zero yard to soak up what fell on our property. In a city it's a big deal. As we contributed to the problem, we got to help pay for it.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Maybe I can shed some light on this issue. The purpose of the cisterns are kind of inverted from what you might expect.Chicago has a combined sewer -- black and grey water together -- and as a result vast quantities of rain water end up being treated to the same level as toilet waste. The system sometimes can't handle all the water in a big storm. In the old days that meant raw sewage would overflow into the Chicago River. The Metro Water Board spent $5 billion building a 25 foot diameter tunnel about 5 miles long and 200 feet deep as a reservoir for such overflows. But since so many rooftops and, more significantly parking lots have been built since the project began 15 or so years ago, it still can't keep up, tho it fails much less frequently. Chicago is built on clay (at least most of it). That's one rationale for sending storm water down the drain -- it can't soak in. So for green building in Chicago, a frequent goal is to manage the water on site. The cisterns help. That water was meted out to on-site plantings while they were being established. One of the tenants, a landscape installation training program, can fill watering trucks for their remote sites. Even if they just function to slow the water moving into the sewer, it can help the system keep up.Flushing toilets with rain water was completely unacceptable at the time (2000) to the building officials responsible for drinking water safety. A building was recently permitted to do this here, but it's an expensive option and water is cheap in Chicago. If there is adequate site are "bio-swales" can do a great job even in clay if designed and constructed correctly, and this is another technology demonstrated at CCGT.The point I think is that water you can use is a resource. Water that becomes a liability is a problem. In short, the cisterns at CCGT are less about the value of water than about the cost of letting it go down the drain. Of course to have real value, on-site storm water management techniques would have to be applied across the region.Also there are many green aspects of CCGT that were chosen for their ability to demonstrate a technology, that might not have been selected if it was just an office building.A side note: a nearby just completed green building (LEED Gold design) for a landscape contractor will harvest 25,000/month of rain water. They expect to save money by filling water trucks with something other than city water.
We are having a major drought down here in our state in Oz, water tanks are up to 10-12 weeks lead time, the systems we install on our houses invovles 1000-6000 litre water tanks to collect stormwater, these are hooked up to the toilets for flushing (and garden) the pump cuts out when water is low and reverts back to town water.
This simple system is almost standard on new builds here because of the ongoing water issues.
The good thing about a crisis is it brings in new technology which before was either not viable or people just don't care, their are lots of good ideas out there that will get a run because of the changing climate.
cheers,
John
In Colorado it is technically illegal to catch a bucket of water off your roof when it rains.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire