Category Archives: Infrastructure

Environment, Infrastructure, Sustainability

Water Conservation & Rainwater Collection Lag In Conservation Efforts

reservoir-69214_640Green building, low carbon emissions and solar power have all gotten a lot of press in the past couple of decades. What seems to be lagging behind is water conservation and rainwater collection. All are important for sustainability, but without water, it won’t matter. WE are naturally dependent on water; we cannot live without clean drinking water.

Tap water is relatively cheap – pennies on the dollar. WE pay very little for it due to bulk purchasing from manufacturing and agriculture. We have clean, safe drinking water piped to our homes and all we need to do is turn on the tap without giving it much thought at all.

What goes on behind the scenes is not a concern to most. Chlorine to disinfect along with fluoride for the health of our children’s teeth is all done by our water suppliers. All we have to do is pay our bill every month.

That is changing however; our infrastructure is beginning to show signs of aging. Boil your water alerts are becoming more commonplace. Pollutants are affecting our municipal water supplies more often.

Shortages due to drought conditions have affected many of our western states – the most newsworthy being California, where Folsom Lake,Northern California reservoir has mysteriously run dry, leaving thousands of fish dead.   (Is anyone minding the store in California?)  Washington State is also experiencing the worst drought ever recorded.

Small efforts are being made to get the word out by water suppliers. Voluntary water reduction has achieved a small percentage of actual impact since the drought is continuing into fall so far. Low snow pack is expected again this winter in the Cascades, both north and south. Efforts by water suppliers will be focused on education about conservation, but old habits are hard to break when water is so cheap. Homeowners and businesses can expect increases in prices, but that will have little effect on conservation. Breakdowns in infrastructure, accidental releases, and more contamination will become more common in the very near future.

Private rainwater collection will have the most positive effect on water shortages in the near future. A simple system to irrigate landscaping will save hundreds of millions of gallons of municipal water next summer. Toilet, laundry facilities, and wash down using rainwater collection might make the difference in municipal supply shortfalls. A potable whole house system provides a legal, viable source that puts the owner as being his own purveyor of his or her water source. Rainwater is a clean, reliable water source than can be collected during those rainy periods and stored for dry months.

Progressive thinking on all sustainability efforts is good for the health of our planet, but water conservation and rainwater collection will be the most important.

Infrastructure, Rainwater Catchment, Sustainability

Aging Public Water Systems Money Sits Unspent

tap-357252_1280Water is vital to public health, maintaining our environment and preservation of quality of life. We simply can’t live without water. Our nation’s public water system infrastructure is in dire need of upgrading. Many systems are so old that the maintenance costs are beginning to overtake the cost of replacement.

The EPA offers funding for low interest loans to public water systems. According to a Washington Times article, ‘The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency projects it will cost $384 billion over 20 years just to maintain the nation’s existing drinking water infrastructure. Replacing pipes, treatment plants and other infrastructure, as well as expanding drinking water systems to handle population growth, could cost as much as $1 trillion.”

Furthermore, the article goes on to note that in spite of demand, more than $1 billion sits, unspent, in a funding pool managed by the largest federal aid program for drinking water improvements, the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, (as reported after a review by The Associated Press).

Why would available funding to improve public water systems, necessary for public health and a strong economy, be left sitting in government accounts? According to CNBC, “Project delays, poor management by some states and structural problems have contributed to nearly $1.1 billion in congressional appropriations sitting unspent in Drinking Water State Revolving Fund accounts as of Aug. 1.”

Adding to the muck, the money that is being tapped is largely used for services associated to drinking water, but not infrastructure improvements. The CNBC article goes on to report “About 1 in 5 dollars in recent years has gone to purposes such as paying the salaries of state employees and contractors. Those expenses are allowable but leave less for the repair and replacement of leaky pipes, deteriorating treatment plants and century-old storage tanks.”

So, while funding is available for municipal and county water systems improvement, almost 20 percent of the money drawn from this grant pool is currently being used to pay for administrative costs, leaving less money available for the $1 trillion estimated that will be needed across the board – for just water infrastructure improvements, not inclusive of roads, bridges, energy, etc.

There are many safe and sustainable options available to supplement public water systems with rainwater collection. While available in many areas, we need more education about the value and  stability achieved by adding a rainwater collection system to a residence or commercial property. In some areas, a rainwater collection system could be sole-source for whole house usage, or a supplement to city water, easing the burden on public systems caused by population growth and aging infrastructure.

Environment, Infrastructure

Water Supply Predictions from Seattle Public Utilities

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Seattle Downtown After RainThe water supply prediction scenarios from Seattle Public Utilities are in – and the outlook isn’t good for Seattle and Washingtonians.

According to an article on Grist.org titled, This Drought is so Bad That Even Seattle is Running Out of Water, “Almost all the future scenarios modeled by SPU showed big drops in what’s known in water-utility lingo as “firm yield”: the amount of water that can be reliably delivered. Even assuming a drastic cutback in the amount of greenhouse gasses being emitted today, Seattle is looking at reduced firm yield of an average of about 30 percent through 2050, according to three of these future climate simulations. …”

One option for increasing water supply includes drawing water from Lake Youngs, but that might pull mud into the water supply, requiring expensive water treatment. Water from Puget Sound is an option but that would involve costly desalination.

So, what’s one of the country’s the fastest-growing cities to do? Although Seattleites have been proactive about conserving water usage over the last 50 years with efforts like low-flow toilets, there’s only so much cutting back you can do when supply is tight.

An article on InvestigateWest titled, Climate Change is Darkening Seattle’s Water Forecast, shares that water supply predictions are dire, even though models may be incomplete and involve guesswork and assumptions based on “what-if” scenarios.

“Quietly unveiled to regional water managers over the summer, the admittedly incomplete — and yet extremely sobering — calculations show the amount of water Seattleites can count on could be reduced by as much as half over the next 35 years and nearly three-quarters by the end of the century.”

The article goes on to share: “The climate models are not perfect,” acknowledges SPU climate researcher Paul Fleming. But these simulations are clearly showing that “climate change will increase the magnitude and the likelihood of those events occurring,” Fleming said.”

Seattle, it’s time to go beyond conservation efforts like taking shorter showers and running your dishwasher less often. Do you know that with rainwater collection, you can have your own supply of water for washing laundry and flushing toilets? In some areas, you can even collect your own drinking water.

RainBank customers are already benefiting by collecting rain. Read more about RainBank systems in Bellevue, Vashon Island and the Puget Sound area and how folks are proactively dealing with More Cuts To Seattle Water Usage.