Kiss the rain

Back to my rainwater reclamation kick from Tuesday, I was rooting around on the website for Tampa Bay Water this morning. Tampa Bay Water supplies water to 2.5 million people in Pinellas County, Saint Petersburg, Tampa, Hillsborough County, Pasco County and New Port Richie. That's an odd-looking list, but apparently there are municipalities within the counties listed who don't fall under the jurisdiction of Tampa Bay Water.

Anyhow, I was looking on their site to see if anybody at that hallowed body has ever given any thought to rainwater harvesting. It turns out they have, click here, but it doesn't appear that they've thought about it on any kind of large scale. The same goes for Swiftmud, their website lists this link to a discussion about rain barrels. Thanks to Mike Molligan, their Communications Director, for pointing that out to me.

As I talk to clients and friends about rainwater harvesting, the question always comes up about how many household uses harvested rainwater has. I'm fast to point out that it's perfect for toilet flushing, irrigation and clothes washing. I'd always assumed that it was illegal to use it as a drinking water supply. I figured that it wasn't possible to opt out of a municipal water supply. Well, it turns out that I was wrong on all counts. To quote Tampa Bay Water:

Currently, there is no existing regulation or policy in the State of Florida regarding the use of cisterns for potable or non-potable use. This research was undertaken to find policies and permitting criteria that is used by other governments that could provide some rationale for understanding how and why
permitting and design specifications may be required in the Tampa Bay region.

So a rainwater harvesting system paired with a reverse-osmosis filter could allow anybody to supply his own drinking water. For now anyhow. Interesting. I am not suggesting that any one actually do this mind you, but it's an interesting thought.

On a related note, I came across this story about a High School a week ago on the great blog Metaefficient. The Langston Brown Community Center and High School in Arlington, Virginia captures and uses 280,000 gallons of rainwater every year. The facility uses that water for non-potable purposes exclusively. This is in an area of the country with 39 inches of rainfall a year, so it's not as if this building is sited in a part of the country that's particularly wet. Metaefficient also linked me to a case study on the USGBC's (the US Green Building Council) website that about knocked my socks off.

The 32,000 square foot headquarters of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis MD, is said to be the most energy efficient building ever built. It saves the foundation housed in it $33,000 in energy and utility costs when compared to a conventional office building of the same size. Saving $33,000 a year isn't just for granola-eaters kids. Sustainability makes sound, solid, economic sense and continuing to build things conventionally because "that's the way we've always done it" is madness.

Finally, a lawn I can live with

Check this out!


This is a lawn made by a company called SynLawn --a waterless, maintenance-free alternative to the Great Satan, St. Augustine Grass. Imagine having the great American lush, green lawn that you never have to water, fertilize or cut.



So long as you don't live in a deed-restricted community that bans their product, please take a look at what this company is offering. If, on the other hand, you find yourself in a deed-restricted community; what were you thinking? No really, if you live in a place that's short-sighted enough to require that you have a natural lawn, take some of this information to your next homeowner's association meeting.

SynLawn is made and headquartered in Dalton, GA and they don't seem to be a presence in Florida. Yet anyhow. This stuff looks great, really. Their website is loaded with information, instructions and prices. Check it out!

Even Dachshunds love SynLawn.

The best PSA I've seen in a while

There is a honey bee problem in the US if you're not aware of it. The video below is Haagen Dasz's, the ice cream people, hilarious PSA on a real biological mystery. This video shows something called the Bee Boys' homage to the dances honeybees perform to communicate to their hive mates. That I have no idea what a Bee Boy is tells me that this is a one-time skit and not some kind of a trend among the youth of today

Honey bees' pollination is responsible for something like a third of the foods we eat and their numbers are collapsing and no one can figure out why. Honey bee colonies across the US are experiencing something called Colony Collapse Disorder. For reasons so-far unknown to science, honey bees flee a colony spontaneously and then die.

The honey bees that pollinate American food crops are European bees that have been introduced and are trucked around the country in a state of near domestication. Without bees, we don't get apples, almonds, oranges, etc. Not to mention no honey and no Burt's Bees lip balm.

I took this photo in May. It's an actual European honeybee in Europe. Seriously though, Bee Boys aside, this honeybee thing is pretty pressing. Check out Hagen Dasz's site and read up on it.

Raindrops keep falling on my head, chapitre deux

Tampa, Florida gets an average of 46 inches of rain a year. Nearly all of that rainwater floods the streets and washes garbage and silt into the Bay. I have been wondering if there can be some good use for those 46 inches. So I set out to do some math to see what that means in gallons. A friend of mine is a fiercely proud Tampan and a math wiz. He lives in a typical Tampa ranch house and here's what he figured out for me.

His typical house has 2100 square feet of roof. Since rainfall is measured officially using the metric system, his roof measures 195 square meters As of last week, Tampa had received approximately 26 inches, or 660 mm of rain in 2008. 660 mm times 195 m² equals 128.8 m³. Since, as everybody knows, a cubic meter of water equals 264 gallons; this means that more than 34,000 gallons of rain water has fallen on my wise friend's roof since January 1, 2008.

Now, since we know the typical Tampa household uses 104 gallons of water a day for a total of 37,960 gallons a year, and we know that approximately 34,000 gallons of water have fallen on my atypical friend's typical roof so far in 2008; I think we can safely say that there's a way out of Florida's water mess. If it's not already obvious, that way out can't be found in the aquifer, in the Hillsborough River or in the new, gazillion-dollar desal plant in Apollo Beach.

Where is the serious discussion of rainwater harvesting? Don't ask because you won't hear it from the Southwest Florida Water Management District or from Tampa Bay Water. Capturing rainwater is too easy I suppose. Here's a diagram of a fully-integrated rainwater harvesting system. Mentioning one of these to a builder in these parts will get you a whole lot strange looks and that's as ridiculous as it is inexcusable. I blame the water authorities for their chronic shortsightedness and inability to plan for a livable future, never mind a sustainable one.

But you needn't wait for Swiftmud or the authority to find this obvious solution, you can get started on your own. Start with a small scale collector. Set a barrel under a downspout and cover it to keep the mosquitoes at bay. Attach a hose to the bottom of the barrel and wash your car with it. Or water your garden. Or give the dog a bath. Or God forbid, water the lawn.



Rainwater harvesting is a smart, efficient use of resources. Get in on it early kids because before too long your water bills will start to look like your electric bills.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

According to the City of Tampa, the average household in Tampa consumes 104 gallons of water a day. That "average household" includes single family and multi-family residences, and multi-family dwelling skew that average down. The city doesn't keep separate statistics, but from I have been able to piece together from a host of sources, a typical Tampa single family home goes through 140 gallons of water a day. But for the sake of brevity and accuracy, I'm going to use Tampa's official number of 104 gallons. So at 104 gallons of water per day, the average house in Tampa goes through 37,960 gallons of water a year. The City of Tampa admits that 40% of Tampa's residential water use goes to landscape irrigation. That's a mind-bending 15,184 gallons of potable water that gets sprinkled onto lawns.

Tampa and the rest of Florida are running headlong into a water crisis. That crisis is being fueled by moronic development non-regulations and St. Augustine grass. You heard it here first folks.

So, what's a lawn-loving Tampan to do? Tune in later for some ideas.