[Lapg] greywater

[CURTIS BLANKINSHIP]

Gray water debate in Sacramento steams upPosted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March
18, 2009 at 7:59 am

>From the Los Angeles Times Greenspace blog:

The graywater debate is reaching the boiling point in Sacramento, with
lawmakers and gray water advocates both getting steamed in their attempts to
draft a new residential gray water standard for the state of California.
Under current law, homeowners who want to install systems that recycle the
wastewater generated from their sinks, showers, bathtubs and laundry
machines into their landscaping must conform to Appendix G of the California
plumbing code, which requires that gray water systems not only be permitted
by the appropriate administrative authority but installed underground with
extensive filtering apparatus.

Appendix G went into effect in 1992 at the tail end of a five-year drought.
Its update was required by Senate Bill 1258, which passed last summer,
requiring the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development to
revise the code in an effort “to conserve water by facilitating greater
reuse of graywater in California.” While the code’s revision is scheduled to
take effect Jan. 1, 2011, its specific provisions are currently under
intense debate.

Gray water advocates say California’s current residential gray water
standard is too restrictive, impractical and expensive and are lobbying for
a standard similar to Arizona’s. In Arizona, homeowners are allowed to
install gray water systems without a permit as long as they are recycling no
more than 400 gallons of gray water a day and follow a set of 13 guidelines.
Representatives from California’s Department of Housing and Community
Development, however, say they have to come up with a workable standard that
“won’t create any type of a long-term hazard for the whole state,” said Jim
Rowland, the HCD representative who is working on the new code. “We’re not
going to make everybody happy, but there’s a bull’s-eye in there somewhere.”
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