Under Utah’s old rules, the greywater permit cost $350, and you were required to install a system with a minimum 250-gallon surge tank and pump. coli which makes it much more challenging to treat than greywater.Ĭomparing Utah’s old rules to the new rules Toilet drain water is coined blackwater due to human waste, and high amounts of resulting bacteria such as E. For a kitchen sink drain water reuse system legal in Arizona, see “Sizing and Implementing a Kitchen Resource Drain (KRD) in Arizona, Code Clarification, and Recommended Changes to the Code” in Appendix 3 of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2, 2 nd Edition. Kitchen sink drain water is considered either dark greywater or blackwater (classification changes depending on the entity classifying the water) due to the presence of food scraps, oils, and grease and the resulting bacteria which necessitate different strategies for reuse than greywater. Greywater is lightly used water going down the drains of household showers, bathtubs, laundry, and bathroom sinks, which can be redirected to your landscape and reused, thereby transforming that “waste” water into a free “resource” for irrigating your landscape. Greywater, dark greywater, and blackwater +Ludwig – Creating an Oasis with Greywater This represents 1 acre-foot of “new” water supply per every 9-13 households using greywater (assuming they use all greywater to offset other on-site irrigation uses) The average household of 3 people generates 25,000 – 36,600 gallons of greywater per year+ While advocating for the greywater rule change, Utah activists Ros Brain McCann and Jeffrey Adams pointed out in numerous presentations to state and county health officials that if every household in Utah were to harvest all its greywater (to offset other on-site irrigation uses of water) the greywater could potentially create a “new” water source (in the form of the harvested greywater) in the state equaling 68,000 to 98,500 acre-feet of water per year.Īn acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre of land with a one-foot depth of water. This should greatly benefit Utah, which is the second driest state in the U.S., and has the second highest water-use-per-person rate in the county. Utah has recently revised its rules for greywater harvesting systems to allow for residential households to permit, install, and use simple, affordable, and effective branched drain gravity-fed systems discharging to naturally-filtering mulched and vegetated basins in the landscape. and How You Can Help Make Such Change Where You Are Simple & Effective Gravity-fed Greywater Harvesting Systems Legalized in Utah
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