Prediction 2010: Blue is the New Black
For the past decade oil has been described as a national addiction with global consequences – holding sway over business, industry and government. It has fueled the green movement, redefined what we think when we hear the word “efficiency,” and changed the way we build our homes and buildings.
But in its shadow is another, perhaps more valuable resource, that will utterly change the way we approach building in the next decade: Water.
According to various research, it’s estimated that about two-thirds of the world’s population will be living in areas with moderate to severe water stress by 2025. Domestically, it’s said that 36 states are likely to experience water shortages by 2013.
While water conservation measures have slowed the national consumption rate, population increase, water pollution and climate change all threaten the supply of clean, usable water. (Check out this cool interactive feature from The New York Times to see what’s lurking in your tap water.)
When water trumps oil on the social stage, it will undoubtedly affect those tied to residential building. No longer will low-flow faucets and fixtures suffice as adequate water conservation measures. You can count on the IRC mandating conservation more severely, by demanding the integration of rainwater catchments, grey water recycling systems and other advanced water saving technologies. These measures will without a doubt be adopted by those jurisdictions hit hard by the water shortage, like California, Nevada and Texas. But this isn’t a regional problem. Builders and homeowners from coast to coast are going to have to learn to create homes as if every single drop of water counts, simply, because it does.
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Has anyone considered a systems approach to "saving" water? Water is not consumed, it is only used. After use, it is still water. Where I live, we use groundwater. It is possible to recharge sewage effluent. Actually my county does recharge some of it and I think that my community recharges most of it.
If you consider that sewage effluent is recharged and reused, most of the methods to "save" water make a lot less sense. Some of them don't make sense for any community that uses groundwater. This is single entry accounting -- the effect on the amount of aquifer recharge is not considered, only the water "saved".
It is a good thing to prevent rainwater runoff from your property, but if you catch rainwater and store it in a tank, this means less rain percolates into the ground -- less ground water.
With 100% recharge of effluent, preventing water from going down the drain doesn't make as much difference since it will simply be reused. It is true that the process isn't 100% efficient, and it takes energy to treat the effluent and pump it out of the ground again. However, from what I have read, a sewage treatment plant is a possible source of alternative energy that can produce considerably more energy that is used to operate it.
Groundwater recharge with "reclaimed" or "recylced" water is more common than you think.
This is a timely topic; water reuse is one of the lowest-hanging fruit in cost- and energy-savings when it comes to new construction. And Yagid is right to signal that mandatory measures can't be far behind.
For those who are interested in learning more,there's a free downloadable fact sheet at the UW-Extension's Learning Store that tells you how much water such systems can save you as well as guidelines for their use. Some information is tailored to Wisconsin building codes, but most of it can be broadly applied: http://learningstore.uwex.edu/On-site-Water-Reuse-Systems-Using-Water-to-Its-Full-Potential-P1362C0.aspx
100% effluent ground-recharge. That's what our old privy did. Just make sure it's at least 200 feet from the well.
We can expect the nannies in the government to do anyhing they can to exert control over as much as they can. Even lie to us about environmental issues; global cooling - which became global warming - which became plain old climate change. {Of course it changes. Billions of our ancestors learned to live with it}. Now it's water shortages.
If the market was the driver behind our resource consumption not government power, cities and states would never have been able to extort the water rights from farmers and such to support building big cities in silly places, like Las Vegas. Most of Nevada, the driest state, would have no problem supplying their own local water needs if cooercive laws had not been enacted to divert much of the sate's water to that one city, along with water from Utah and Arizona. Results of more back-room governmental deals.
California has been recycling effluent for years. There is a rest stop on I-5 that has sign touting the wondeful work they are doing. The water comes out the color of cafe au lait and smells like they forgot to filter it. I never have tasted it, nor washed my hands in it. Nature has a better means of processing used water, and our self-reliant ancestors paid attention to those things, not some unelected regulatory agency. That bottle of spring water you are enjoying could have been, at one time, pig spit. Nature did a wonderful job of making it better - just compare that to what a politicaly motivated comittee (think OSHA, or worse) would have done to fix it.
berferdt's comments are well taken. But government has to play a role in water issues and here's why. Okay, that was a trick statement, government already does. Gov has legislated for big development interests for the past 150 years. The folks who control our legislators, corporate lobbyists, are the ones responsible for, as you rightly put it, "building big cities in silly places, like Las Vegas." I believe in market-driven change, but in the case of public utilities, well, there's no incentive to change in a monopoly. As far the methods our ancestors used? Come on! It's a different world. With 6.3 billion people and climbing, it's going to take leadership and a willingness to contribute (read sacrifice) to the "common good", a behavior our American citizenry have lost track of.