[Lapg] Gray water's grass roots LA The Christian Science Monitor / January 26, 2010

Sun Mar 7 06:22:22 PST 2010

Gray water's grass roots
In a grass-roots effort, a Los Angeles community pushes the 
plant-saving practice of reusing water from showers, baths, sin ks, 
and washers.

Laura Allen, cofounder of Greywater Action, installed a laundry to 
landscape irrigation system in Oakland, Calif.
Tony Avelar/The Christian Science Monitor

By Gloria Goodale Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / 
January 26, 2010
Eco Village, near Koreatown, Los Angeles
If water is the next battleground for a globe facing dwindling water 
resources, then this 1960s-style community center at the northern end 
of Los Angeles's Koreatown is at the forefront of the fight.

On this day, Laura Allen, cofounder of Greywater Action, a group that 
encourages conserving and reusing household water, is in her fourth 
of a five-day workshop teaching Californians how to reclaim and 
recycle what has been dubbed "gray water." Typically, gray water 
includes the discharge from washing machines, sinks, showers, and 
tubs, which is then used to provide moisture for outdoor plants, from 
backyard rosebushes to large orchards.

While progress has been made - many institutions, corporations, and 
municipalities around the world use gray water - activists say 
there's still a long way to go. And it's groups such as Greywater 
Action that are helping to drive change.

"Grass-roots efforts - seeing an issue and trying to do something by 
acting individually and being responsible stewards - are very 
important," says Kathy Robb, founder and director of the Water Policy 
Institute in New York.

As an example, she points to the fact that before regulations in 
California were changed last August to make it legal for homeowners 
to install or alter a simple gray-water system without a construction 
permit, there were already an estimated 2 million unpermitted systems 
in the Golden State.
This is evidence, Ms. Allen says, that, given the opportunity, state 
residents will embrace the technology for both economic and 
environmental reasons.

'Laundry to landscape' systems

'This is the way the world is going. We all need to learn to save 
water," says Trent Cawthon, a handyman from Redondo Beach, Calif., 
who aspires to be a contractor and feels that expertise with 
gray-?water systems will make his services more valuable.
Mr. Cawthon is part of a four-person team that has designed a simple 
"laundry-to-landscape" system. They will practice their skills at the 
community center, running plastic pipes from the laundry room to the 
front of the building, where the rinse water will irrigate four fruit 
trees.

Cawthorn's teammate, Allan Haskell from Echo Park, Calif., runs a 
green consulting business that helps restaurants find compostable 
containers for takeout food. He hopes to expand his business to 
encompass gray-water planning.
Diana Lawrence, a former urban planner, is attending the workshop 
because she hopes to downsize her utility bills through gray-water 
usage.
Landscape architect Robin Grabs of San Pedro, Calif., has come 
because two clients requested gray-water systems. It's fascinating, 
she says, but the amount of information is overwhelming.

Allen understands this reaction. "Fitting all the important things 
that gray water brings into a five-day class and a manageable package 
is a challenge," she says. The course has to cover plant and soil 
information, plumbing, and landscaping and design skills. It's aimed 
at a wide range of users - from those who must work within small 
budgets to those with larger ambitions, as well as people who simply 
want to water the plants in their yard inexpensively and those who 
might have a large commercial landscape.

Legalization boosts demand

In the months since California changed the gray-water permit 
requirements, demand has begun to build statewide, says John Leys of 
Sherwood Design Engineers in San Francisco, which has clients across 
the United States as well as abroad.
Mr. Leys recently consulted on new ?water-planning regulations for 
Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, which has water needs 
similar to those in the American Southwest.

'Ten years ago, we were not seeing any demand for gray-water 
systems," he says, but now clients of all types are requesting 
projects that range from simple and inexpensive backyard irrigation 
retrofits to complex, multipurpose gray-water systems that are part 
of the design from the beginning.

Leys notes that as pressures over drought regulations and energy 
conservation have started to build, many businesses have begun to see 
that reclamation and reuse make sense from both a business and an 
environmental standpoint.
For instance, if a development of 10,000 new homes reduces its 
overall potable water use by as much as 25 percent, he says, that 
means a huge savings in construction and utility costs.

Most of the momentum toward greater use of gray-water systems is not 
being driven by economics - yet. "But that is inevitable," Leys says, 
"if you consider that despite the vast oceans covering the planet, 
less than 1 percent of the world's water is both fresh and accessible 
for human use."

He believes that it's important to plan for solutions in advance of a 
water crisis, and that when and how that's done will become critical.
Today, even with conventional water-supply strategies and 
technologies, water shortages are common in communities around the 
globe. The World Health Organization reports that more than 2 billion 
people - roughly 1 out of every 3 people on the planet - live in a 
water-stressed area.

Commenting on the importance of reclaiming and reusing water, Leys 
says: "History demonstrates that properly managed water resources can 
be the deciding factor in determining the habitability of an 
individual site, the sustainability of a community, or the survival 
of an entire civilization."

[Editor's note: The original cutline of the first photograph 
misstated the type of system being installed and for whom.]
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