sewage effluent is gold but not in your hands

Perspective for your consideration …What does it look like when it’s fixed…?

Published: 09.24.2008……ERIC SAGARA…Tucson Citizen …'Graywater' recycling units coming to new city homes. In a couple of years, new homes within city limits will come with at least part of the plumbing needed to use recycled "graywater" on the landscaping. The City Council unanimously approved an ordinance Tuesday night that requires builders to include the waste system needed to connect to a graywater irrigation system. Graywater includes water from bathroom sinks, laundry sinks, showers and tubs. Installing a waste system will cost about $500, according to the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association. The ordinance takes effect June 1, 2010. Supporters of the ordinance at Tuesday's public hearing included environmentalists, water conservationists and representatives of the local plumbers union. Two mechanical engineers were the only people to speak in opposition, voicing fears that the waste systems within the home would cause clogging and burden homebuyers with another expense. Stan Adams, a mechanical engineer who chairs the city's Mechanical Code Committee, said removing graywater from the home's waste system may cause problems with flushing solid waste from toilets, which will be separate from the graywater system. "The ordinance sounds very politically correct," he said. "I mean who doesn't want to save water?" But "I think there's more study that needs to be involved," Adams said. Jay Casey, training director at Arizona Pipe Trades, said there shouldn't be any clogging as long as the work is done right. "This idea that is being proposed is being used in several parts of the country," Casey said. "It shouldn't be a problem here in Tucson as long as it is done properly."

One could rise and salute the unilateral action on the part of Tucson to defy current ADEQ rules respecting the design, installation, use and O&M associated with any “greywater” system in Arizona. The current ADEQ rules and regulations respecting the design, installation, use and O&M of any “greywater” system are draconian and grossly inappropriate.

Current “greywater” use in Arizona is limited to primarily those independent and forward thinking individuals who are willing to defy and push the envelope on ADEQ vaunted Unified Permit Rules reputedly promulgated and enforced state-wide. And if you choose to believe that, I most certainly do have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell you…!

"It shouldn't be a problem here in Tucson as long as it is done properly." … This is the salient point and the Achilles heel of “greywater” use in Arizona. Our political and bureaucratic leaders, those we elected to serve & protect us are unwilling to stand before any of us and admit, they honestly do not want to see “greywater” usage implemented state-wide. Why…? I especially invite you to ask the leaders of all “metro” Phoenix cities and towns, those who sold those rights years ago as cooling water for Palo Verde Nuclear Power Generation plant some 45 miles west of Phoenix. Bottom line, you don’t own your sewage water those rights were transferred to others.

A noted professor at UA in Tucson, Charles Peter Gerba, Ph.D., has for years studied aspects of “greywater” concluding in recent remarks at a seminar in Tucson that a surprising amount of fecal matter, in particular, resides in our laundry water. For many this will not come as a surprise though it alters our current treatment technology employed in Arizona, if indeed, we are honestly choosing to protect both human health and our environment. And our current treatment technologies play directly into the comment … "It shouldn't be a problem here in Tucson as long as it is done properly." I believe it can be parenthetically noted we are not choosing to utilize greywater technology which “kills” the pathogens in much of the residual laundry water. The question then turns to what other pharmaceutical, chemical, pesticide, herbicide, fungicide, cosmetic, residuals remain untreated in the “greywater” we are currently choosing to rather whimsically dispose of…?

And guess what…? For-profit water purveyors have discovered and are continuing to discover there is “gold-in-sewage-effluent-liquid” and “we” – that’s the for-profit corporations – are NOT going to share it with the likes of you or you or you.

I invite you to consider perusing these: Blue Gold, by Maude Barlow, Living Water, by Olof Alexandersson, Life’s Matrix, by Phillip Ball, Your Body’s Many Cries for Water, by Dr. F. Batmanghelidj and Silent Spring, by Rachel Carson for starters.

Then I invite you to Google: Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, Vivendi, RWE AG, Thames Water LLC, USFilter, Bechtel Group and I believe you will begin to discover the enormous and inordinate influence these for-profit corporations exert on the world’s water resource. On the lobbying front, another key battleground of political influence, just three groups — the National Association of Water Companies, United Water and American Water Works —traditionally have supported privatization measures.

So you really think Arizona government honestly endorses statewide “greywater” use…? Get over it, folks, “greywater” in the right hands can be turned into “gold” and it’s not in your hands…!

Council approves graywater regulations
Homes built after mid-2010 affected
Arizona Daily Star... Rob O'Dell
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/259086

'Graywater' recycling units coming to new city homes
Tucson Citizen... Eric Sagara
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/all_headlines/97585