Lauren spoke about the realities of drought, water supply issues, and one simple solution for keeping home landscapes and gardens green: graywater re-use; 77 people listened, took notes, and asked good questions.
We made some tools here, a good way to begin your graywater system or project:
Soil+Texture+By+Feel (PDF, a chart)
GraywaterDesignModel (an Excel spreadsheet)
DBL Graywater Presentation 2014-09-17 (3mb, PowerPoint)
Dr. Lauren Ross, Ph. D., P.E., author
Please contact Robert Stefani with the City of Austin to help you put your project into full legal compliance if your graywater project is inside the City of Austin city limits County and state regulations may also apply, depending on the size of your project (usually measured in number of gallons per day), and where your project is located.
These web sites offer solid, science-based, experience- and practice-based advice from true graywater pioneers:
harvestingrainwater.com/greywater-harvesting/
greywateraction.org/greywater-recycling
(this talk has already occurred, please refer to the files at the top of this page for resources and support)
Graywater Reuse:
Designing a system that works
Date/Time
Sep 17, 2014
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Design~Build~Live hosts Lauren Ross Ph.D, P.E., who will guide people
through the design considerations of a graywater reuse system and put the
record straight on some graywater myths and misconceptions. She will answer
everyone’s burning questions on how to make use of this valuable resource
instead of sending it down to the drain for costly, relatively ineffective
and resource intensive treatment. The presentation will be given from the
perspective of a professional engineer and will touch on environmental
impacts (the good and the bad), permitting process, human health and safety,
treatment and soap.
Lauren Ross, Ph.D., P.E. is an environmental engineer and owner of Glenrose
Engineering, Inc. in Austin, Texas. Her areas of expertise include water
quality protection and engineering design, groundwater transport, solid
waste management and disposal, environmental monitoring and litigation. Her
clients represent a diverse community of developers, businesses, industrial
manufacturers, governments, lawyers, state regulatory agencies,
universities, environmental and community organizations and private
individuals.
Her work during the last twenty-five years has focused on design,
monitoring, and protection systems for groundwater, surface water and soil.
Her work includes the development, design, construction management, review,
and inspection of state-of-the-art systems to capture and treat storm runoff
using pervious pavement, retention/ irrigation, bioretention, sand
filtration, infiltration and vegetative filter controls.