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Waste Management Videos:
Grey Water System (overview) 4.5 min
Grey Water System (tour) 8.5 min
Grey Water Update (Fall, 2009) 10 min
Text: The Grey Water System
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The Main Pond monitors system health
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Our waste system is a constant source of joy. It cost little (less than $1,000), easily repaid by the special sort of relationship it required with Lynda, my partner in all of this. Together, we were able to commit to a loving and respectful connection with our place and the many creatures that are also at home here.
One of our first priorities after choosing to live at Sandgarden was to responsibly minimize our impact. That meant caring for our waste. Poop was easy. Turn it into compost and everything loves it. Waste water is harder. You have to clean it.
Modern waste-water systems take concentrated waste flow and treat it so that it is mostly benign before it is returned to the Earth. This is a “grey water system” and it’s specifications are controlled by various codes, regulations, and laws. But happily, if you don’t release the water, it is not yet waste and regulations don’t apply. So if you don’t let it go, you can do with it what you want. We celebrate the cleansing process and the many functions it serves. It provides diverse creature and plant habitats, transpiration and evaporative cooling, windbreak, fire protection, garden irrigation, construction material, tranquillity, and awe. It was all dug and constructed by little old (68) me... with a hand shovel and a smile.
I will do my best to describe how and why Lynda and I built the grey water system. I hope you can make direct use of some of my methods (especially the sand/straw/cement plaster system).
But if you hear nothing else, hear this. It is most important to see through the specific details of what we did. This will enable you to perceive the underlying Earth Wisdom: The Natural Law that determines the success (the sustainability) of a species and those to which it is most closely interdependent (mitakuye oyasin, Lakota for “all my relations”). Should you build a waste system it will be your interpretation of this wisdom. You will assume stewardship over a real piece of Earth and the life that lives there. What you do should be directed by the honoring of this place. Our soil is sandy, so digging is easy and damage to the plants is minimal. We have a gentle slope (really important), and it faces just East of South. We live along the central coast of California where the climate is quite mild. I had long been a disciple of Bill Mollison, half-parent of “Permaculture”. When I joined The Sandgarden, I was ready go. An enormous number of other real and perceived factors will make your place different. Bill Mollison tried repeatedly to make this point. But, when you first begin to “get it” the actual “tricks” seem so very cool. When I finished my permaculture certification I remember wanting to swale the world. But when you learn to listen to your place, you’ll guess what tricks will work how well. More importantly, they will cease to be tricks because you'll perceive the web of relationships that are influenced by a specific intervention. You will know how to "tune" the intervention to adopt to local needs and resources.
To the best of my knowledge, the manifestations of this sort of thinking always turns out to be fun. If it feels like a hassle, stop doing it. Really! When you can do that, and feel good (on a path with heart), you’ll also know what I mean by listening to your place. As Dakota spiritual warrior Ernie Longwalker once told me: “We just have to remember who we are and that’s as easy as falling off a log”. I believe this saying. But the harder I tried to remember, the more firmly I seemed attached to the log. I’ve loosened that grip somewhat by honoring The Sandgarden. I hope it will work that way for you.
Greywater System
Structurally, the system is made from a plaster composed of sand, cement, and straw. The plaster makes the system leak proof. It allows us to create “features” used by nature to clean water. We have a created the foundation for a “wetland”, two “creeks”, a “pond”, a “yoga pool”, a series of garden beds, and a reservoir. These features contain plants and animals typical of corresponding natural environments, but chosen from local species that are especially good at cleaning water. Actually, we “seeded” it from local sources, but now it has evolved into a very diverse ecosystem with a unique character.
The “waste” water comes from the sinks, bath, shower, urinal, washer, and eaves. It is all collected at the reservoir. A single pump sends water from the reservoir to three destinations: Wetlands, House Pond,and Yoga Pond. The Yoga Pond returns directly to the reservoir. The Wetlands drain to the House Pond. The House Pond drains to a series of growing beds. The growing beds return water to the reservoir. Water is lost from the system through transpiration, evaporation, and ingestion.
Simulated Natural Features
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| The Wetlands at the top of the greywater system |
The wetlands is about 25 ft. long by 2 1/2 ft wide and about 1 ft.deep. It is supplied by water pumped from the reservoir and It grows watercress, duck weed, and big grasses including Arundo, Cattail, and Bamboo. It is home to frogs, snails, mosquito fish, and diverse insects.
Dense roots filter and clear the water while the plants harvest nutrients from our waste and grow quick and tall. We use the big species as plaster lathing in our house construction. The dense vegetation also serves as a privacy screen and windbreak while high summer transpiration acts as a swamp air conditioner for the outdoor kitchen and the herb garden.
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The Upper Stream agitates water like a real stream
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The wetlands act as the headwaters for the upper stream. The upper stream oxygenates with microfeatures that agitate the water like a real stream. It then cascades into a small catchment pool that encourages settlement of heavy stuff from the washer to fall to the bottom where it can be easily scooped out and composted.
Water from this settlement pool goes into an underground pipe that also gets input from the outdoor kitchen sink. The pipe drains into the House Pond.
The wetlands in combination with this upper stream form a sort of boundary for the area of our intense, daily use (our “footprint”). The boundry encloses an area adjacent to the summer kitchen. The summer kitchen benefits from the cooling transpiration of the wetlands and the herbs that grow in the garden.
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The Main Pond is just outside the livng area
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The house pond is intimately associated with our living space. Water dripping from the bell can be heard anywhere in the house and it can be seen through most windows. It features 12 ft. cattails, marsh grasses and water cress. Aquatic critters include snails, fish, and seasonal frogs whose songs mask noise from the surrounding town. To our joy, the pond has become the shared water hole for increasing numbers and diversity of wildlife. There is a source of pure well water less than 75 ft. away, yet dogs, chickens, birds, deer, skunk, possum, raccoon, bees, dragon flies, and Kim, our cat, prefer the recycled waste water in this 8 ft long, 4 ft wide, 3 ft deep ecosystem.
House Pond’s function is mostly to monitor the quality of the water in the system. The metric by which House Pond monitors system health is best described, for us, as beauty. If the fish grow fat, the frogs sing loudly, the grasses grow lushly, and if life congregates to drink there, then it scores high on our beauty scale. The House Pond also provides cleaning and settlement functions and it releases water through transpiration, evaporation, and terrestrial ingestion.
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The Growing Beds return water to the reservoir
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The garden is composed of three beds about 9 in. deep. Two of the beds are about 30 ft. long and 4 ft. wide. The third, closest to the house, is only 15 ft. long and 4 ft. wide.
All told, the gardens provide for about 300 plants placed 1 ft apart. Irrigation water is supplied from the house pond and it can be diverted to irrigate all, any, or none of the the growing beds. This is accomplished by manual valves. This picture was taken during July and contains sunflower, squash, corn, pepers, tomatos, and greens. We also grow California Poppy, Feverfew, and Calendula for transplant in the spring. Just can't have enough beneficial flowers.
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The Yoga Pond forms a continous loop with the reservoir
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The Yoga Pond, just outside my office/yoga shack, is a good place to meditate and cool one’s feet. It also oxygenates and cools the water.
It forms an exchange loop with the reservoir via the lower stream.
We try to keep marine animals and vegatation to a minimum because we like it clear when foot soaking. We do maintain a population of mosquito fish and in the spring, of course, the frogs do their share of soaking and croaking.
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| The Reservoir filters water with water Hyacinth |
All water ends up in the reservoir. That water comes from: (1) Direct drainage of primary liquid waste (urinal, washing machine, bath, shower, and sinks), (2) Eave water from part of the cooling system(), (3) house pond, (4) The garden beds and (5) the yoga pond.
The primary function of the reservoir is to buffer system volume. It also serves to provide preliminary biological filtering thanks to water hyacinth and duck weed. Water arriving at the pond also provides oxygenation and, of course, settlement occurs. Frogs find it especially attractive.
Construction
This system is powered by a sump pump located in the reservoir. It requires about 150 watts for a 2 gallon/minute flow at the top (the wetland). Construction is based on an easily recycled cement and straw composition that was mixed by hand in a bucket. Plumbing was based on new PVC pipe and valves. This constituted the bulk of building costs. I have been told that PVC is bad for living things and ABS (black) plastic pipe is better. Best, I think, would be used copper or even iron pipe. Keep the diameter large (I’d prefer 1”). This should be a low pressure system that conducts water with a minimumof pump energy, and you don’t want it to plug up. I wish I had been more concerned about the plumbing medium. I got in a hurry. .
Plaster
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Plastering the Yoga Pond after thin coat of liquid cement
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After the system is laid out and the plumbing is installed, I wet everything. Then I fill a can with a very watery mixture of Portland cement. This magically freezes the “mold”. Next I mix four parts of sand to one part Portland. Then I mix in some straw (full length, no cutting needed). I let the straw soak in a bucket of water before use. Adding it will dilute your concrete, so you’ll want the concrete mixed as stiff as possible. The goal is thick enough to be workable while still wet enough to bond with the original mold coat. After this construction coat I usually plaster without the straw (as a finish coat) so that water cannot wick in and freeze. For fun, I may finish the project by creating phony rocks. To do this, I sort of grab a gob of the mix, imagine the rock I seek, and it just forms in my hands. Once in place I add chotic details, and Voila! Rocks. What fun!
If you need to tear the system apart, it will do so easily. No rebar here. The pieces with phony rocks break into reusable chunks. If you’ve got real rocks available, by all means plaster them in. But include them within a sealed basin, or mortar them carefully, because they like to spring small leaks.
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