Water Shortages
It's been a mighty dry month or so. The well has been intermittent at best, and the water quality is substandard. We have been drinking bottled water ($0.25 / gallon in 5 gallon jugs), and limiting our water usage, but it's time to put in the cistern we have been delaying. I dug up a couple of Amazon gift certificates, and ordered the best books I could find on rain water harvesting and storage. We will be drilling a DIY well on Oct. 25th, so take a look at http://www.green-trust.org/2007/10/diy-well-drilling-at-green-trust-oct.html. A local concrete company will deliver into our hole, a 1000 gallon precast concrete cistern for $600. The last item we will need is a Aermotor Wind Pump to top the new well, and fill the cistern, which will also be fed from the roof gutters. Next years Green House will take the outflow of our greywater and use subsurface irrigation for our vegetables. This will require biofriendly cleaners, no chemicals, and careful analysis of what goes down our drains.
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands (Vol. 1): Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into Your Life And Landscape - Update: One of the best I've ever read. Highly Recommended. Very readable, understandable, and applicable.
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands (Vol. 2): Water-harvesting Earthworks - Update: Won't be available until January 2008. Volume 3 on cisterns and tanks is even further out. If they are as good as Volume 1, they will be awesome. See http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/
Water Storage: Tanks, Cisterns, Aquifers, and Ponds for Domestic Supply, Fire and Emergency Use--Includes How to Make Ferrocement Water Tanks - Update: Fantastic reference, also a good read, and yet easily implemented.
Rainwater Catchment Systems for Domestic Supply: Design, Construction and Implementation - Update: Another required reference. Lots of background material.
New Addition:
The New Create an Oasis With Greywater: Choosing, Building and Using Greywater Systms - Includes Branched Drains - Art has a way of relating of relaying knowledge to the reader/implementer that is never "Dry", and easily understandable.
We will be discussing the details of this project as we progress at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rainwater/, and keeping folks up to date here at http://www.green-trust.org as well.
Also see Dew harvesting and Rain Barrels.
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands (Vol. 1): Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain into Your Life And Landscape - Update: One of the best I've ever read. Highly Recommended. Very readable, understandable, and applicable.
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands (Vol. 2): Water-harvesting Earthworks - Update: Won't be available until January 2008. Volume 3 on cisterns and tanks is even further out. If they are as good as Volume 1, they will be awesome. See http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/
Water Storage: Tanks, Cisterns, Aquifers, and Ponds for Domestic Supply, Fire and Emergency Use--Includes How to Make Ferrocement Water Tanks - Update: Fantastic reference, also a good read, and yet easily implemented.
Rainwater Catchment Systems for Domestic Supply: Design, Construction and Implementation - Update: Another required reference. Lots of background material.
New Addition:
The New Create an Oasis With Greywater: Choosing, Building and Using Greywater Systms - Includes Branched Drains - Art has a way of relating of relaying knowledge to the reader/implementer that is never "Dry", and easily understandable.
We will be discussing the details of this project as we progress at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rainwater/, and keeping folks up to date here at http://www.green-trust.org as well.
Also see Dew harvesting and Rain Barrels.
posted by KK4HFJ at
2:12 PM
