• • I -;::. _.._lId\1A~ri;';;!:J.!.' I. • • • • • from Sanitation Without Water face discharge than for subsurface because of people and other creepy-crawlies coming in contact with it. One irony is that most discharge standards are presently based on concentration of pollutants, not their total quantity being discharged. By removing toilet and kitchen garbage from the waste stream and reducing water use-both desirable actions- you can end up with higher concentrations (though smaller total quantities) and require more treatment! Many people interested in installing alternate waste treatment systems are upset at greywater disposal requirementsboth Oregon and Maine allow only 113 reduction in septic and leach field size for greywater-only systems. While this is a rather conservative requirement, we often forget that underuse of such systems makes them last much longer. Though you don't save much money on original cost, you save on later maintenance and replacement costs. Grease traps of some kind have been found by most people to be desirable if kitchen sinks are connected to the greywater system, regardless of the ultimate disposal method-unless they are willing to do a considerable amount of maintenance work. For smaller systems. trickling sand filters and mixed media filters employing various sizes of sand and gravel and/ or charcoal, etc. are getting widest testing, but with no conclusive results yet. We initially built ourselves aSS-gallon trickling sand filter, but the first one didn 't have enough pea gravel to support the sand, so the sand filtered out along with the water. Our second attempt worked fine until it clogged and we learned the difference between extra fine dune sand which we have-an excellent filter, but clogs easily-and medium sand, which is a good balance between good filtering and non-clogging. We currently are using and testing a pea gravel filter, combined with a program of grease reduction in the kitchen and a straining filter to remove large food and other particles. We'll report later on what finally works out for us. We've also been monitoring our water use, which is running 37 gallons per day for the three of us without scrimpingwhich suggests that simple. small-scale treatment really is feasible in a fairly large number of conditions. One greywater treatment for suburban style water users that is getting favorable reception in a number of states is the recirculating sand filter. Basically it is a second septic tank sized container filled with medium sand that the wastewater filters through after going through a septic tank. A small pump repeatedly recycles the water through the filter. achieving quite high quality treatment suitable for surface discharge or reuse under most conditions. It is an additional cost, of course, but permits our wasteful living patterns to expand to areas whose soils would not accept leach fields. So far neither Maine nor Oregon has approved any commercial greywater systems, although approval of the recirculating sand filter is likely in Oregon this year. June 1979 RAIN Page 19 Probably the best news III wastewater treatment is a move away from standard units to design for specific conditions. The general trend of Oregon's exp.erimental program is basicly relearning the design options so well contained in Peter warshall's excellent Septic Tank Practices. Maine and other states are focusing on soils evaluation as a basis of disposal system design instead of percolation tests, with a resultant decrease in system failures from 50 percent to 1 percent. An experimental program such as Oregon's has a narrow line to balance between speed and safety- always being accused of foot dragging or allowing installation of unproven designs. My only real criticism is that, outside of California's program, there seems to be no concern with variation in living patterns or provision for simpler living. Invariably, the systems being tested are alternatives only useable for full-bore suburbanism, and that only at substantially increased costs. It took us nine mont~s of hassling to get an owner-built compost privy into the Oregon program. and we still have diffi· culty in getting surface application of greywater tested. Good progress seems also to be occurring in related areas. Cal-OAT reports. in Present Value, the successful implementation of a wastewater management district in Stinson Beach, California, and the construction of a biological wastewater treatment plant employing water hyacinths and microorganisms for the town of Hercules, California. Max Kroschel at the Farallones Institute writes us about how flush toilets and existing waterborne sewage systems can be adapted to more ecological and economical patterns. And composting and/or agricultural application of sewage sludge is no longer a strange and dubious experiment. A couple of months ago in Indiana I overheard a farmer complaining bitterly that the neighboring town would only deliver sludge to farms in a 10-mile radius, and his farm was 15 miles out. Times, they are a-changin'. Resources: Small Scale Waste Management Project University of Wisconsin Madison, WI 53706 Many fine research reports available, particularly the work of Robert Siegrist on greywater segregation and treatmenr. Experimental On-Site Wastewater Program Oregon Department of Environmental Quality P.O. Box 1760 Portland, OR 97207 r-------------~.~~~~~~,;~~I _ . , _ u =' OJ :> ... c u . ~ ct IJtdwv~.J. J,;~.-- "'" e ~p6'X;"'-~rl l Interior view of a Solar Aquacell Wastewater Project California Office of Appropriate Technology 1530 10th St. Sacramento, CA 95814 Their recently released free report, Present Value. gives a good overview and economic evaluation of various a.t. projects in California.
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