All posts by Ken Blair

A rainwater collection systems designer and consultant, Ken has designed and installed residential and commercial systems, primarily in the northwest United States for more than 10 years and, in 2014, began consulting and managing builds in other states. Ken is an accredited ARCSA Professional Designer / Installer and Life Member, the Northwest Regional ARCSA representative and advisor to its education committee and is available to speak about Rainwater Collection Systems design and builds. Ken is a United States Navy veteran, having served on active duty during the Vietnam War era. A career entrepreneur, Ken created a new business focus with a commercial dive company in Hawaii in the mid 1980′s to respond to and clean up oil spills, oil spill equipment training, service and maintenance for the oil co-op service industry. Ken is passionate about having a positive impact on the environment and is also a founding director of BANK-ON-RAIN (2011-2014), whose mission is to create grassroots solutions for rainwater collection for consumption and agriculture in developing areas of the planet.
Professional Development, Sustainability

11th Annual ARCSA Conference

beyondthegarden

ARCSA CONFERENCE | November 9-10, 2015
ARCSA/IA EXPO | November 11-12, 2015
Accredited Professional Workshop | November 12-13, 2015

The American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association  (ARCSA) continues to encourage the protection of our planet and our nation’s resources.

ARCSA will be co-hosting this year’s conference with the Irrigation Association. Exhibits, education seminars, and guest speakers will be on hand to answer your questions on rainwater collection practices.

The demand for drinking water will double in the next 40 years. To meet this demand, we need to conserve today. Rainwater collection is one alternative to conserve our water supplies. 50 – 70% of household water is used for non-potable demand. Irrigation, wash down, laundry and toilets can all use filtered rainwater rather than becoming runoff. Potable use can be achieved with proper filtration and disinfection.

Theodore Roosevelt said it best: “The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value”

Please join us this year for the national conference and the advancement of water conservation. For more information, and to register, please click here.

Residential Rainwater Collection

Rainwater Collection in Baring, Outside of Seattle

Baring WAYou don’t get much more rural in King County than Baring, WA. With no community water available, being concerned with the impact of drilling a well, and the desire to have a clean, safe reliable source of water, RainBank’s customer chose rainwater collection for their sole source of water for their remodel.

The job had its challenges, but in the end, this compact 885 square foot cabin is able to collect enough water for whole house, potable demand. Historically, this area’s annual rainfall has been 42.5″ allowing for 23,432 gallons to be collected.

The 9′ wide, 20,000 lb. GVWR, wooden suspension bridge allowed only one tank at a time for crossing. Delivery of start up water due to a summer install required two water trucks to be used, one on each side of the bridge. One truck brought water from Skykomish and transferred water across the bridge to the other, to be delivered to the cisterns to stay below the weight restriction of the bridge. The bridge’s weight restrictions allowed only for a small excavator to be brought across for excavation for tank placement. The home was so close to the Skykomish river, rocks larger than the excavator were encountered and needed to be navigated around for tank location. Our excavation contractor was awesome!

The filtration and pump room below the house was limited in size for the filtration train and, with winter temperatures well below freezing, along with limitations of excavation, it was decided that the sump tank needed to be placed in the small room as well. (See slides of job below.)

All of these concerns were recognized early on in the project by RainBank’s team and challenges were met, resulting in a very clean 10,000-gallon install. Whole house, potable use from rainwater collection will now provide this cabin with safe, clean, reliable water for years to come with no negative impact on the environment.

“Job well done guys” exclaims Ken Blair to his crew.

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Infrastructure, Rainwater Catchment

Failing Infrastructure is Among Reasons for Future Water Shortages in 8 Cities

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skyline-176943_640According to the World Water Development Report by the United Nations “A 40% shortfall of freshwater would be experienced as soon as 15 years.” Eight cities throughout the world were cited to witness severe  fresh water shortages due to failing infrastructure, saltwater intrusion, sewage and plumbing failures, population growth, and pollution. The report went on to recommend actions of capturing rainwater, recycling waste water, repairing and upgrading sewer and water conveyance, and education on conservation as methods to curtail this threat.

Seattle was brought up in the report as having a sustainable amount of rainfall to support rainwater collection. As stated in an earlier blog post, I wrote that the Puget Sound region would face 6.2 billion dollars in costs to upgrade, retrofit,and expand its freshwater infrastructure in the next 20 years.

Seattle has been progressive in recent years by requiring infiltration or use of stormwater runoff for new construction for residential and commercial projects. But, more can be done in the way of incentives or tax credits for rainwater collection and infiltration for all existing buildings and homes. Retrofitting existing structures is relatively easy but does have costs. Rainwise rain barrel programs create awareness, but fall short on actual conservation. A much more progressive program of promoting rainwater collection and education would recognize positive results in stormwater reduction, demands on freshwater infrastructure, and water consumption. Water districts should recognize that augmenting the water districts’ demands with rainwater collection would be beneficial rather than looking at Rainwater collection as a threat to their revenue. With Seattle’s fast growing population, demands on the infrastructure will rise accordingly. By offsetting demand with supplementary, private rainwater collection systems, demand will be reduced — as well as costs involved with supply.