SITE WATER

The goal in permaculture is to repurpose a drop of water three to four times. To that end, 100% of the water on site will be recycled and repurposed and restored to the aquifer. In addition, by leveraging native landscaping and innovative water systems design our goal is to reduce our overall need for water in the first place so that NO city water other than our domestic supply (taps) as mandated by the health department will be required after plant establishment. Extensive irrigation models available upon request.

This integrated system saves water in six critical ways:

• Water conservation through real-time metering, monitoring and reporting. People can only stop wasting water when they know they are wasting it through data and leak notification.
• Water conservation by using rainwater in place of municipal water for irrigation.
• Water protection by best possible storm water practices.
• Water conservation by using treated wastewater in place of municipal water for irrigation (research shows the largest consumer of electricity for any municipality is water, including delivery, distribution, purification, heating, etc.).
• Water protection by preventing conventional septic effluent from contaminating the groundwater.
• Water conservation by using subsurface drip instead of overhead sprinklers (no loss to evaporation, wind, in efficiencies, etc.).

Site water details

• 50,000-gallon rainwater cistern designed to capture all of the storm water both from roof and surrounding hardscape and site drains. This rainwater system has treatment that is expected (not required) to bring this rainwater/storm water to drinking water standards (or very close) to be reused as landscape irrigation.
• By providing storm water detention and retention we are creating a means for groundwater recharge, by dispersing the storm water over the entire property through the irrigation network and letting this water soak in as it normally would have if no house were ever built on the property.
• 100 percent of the wastewater (including backwater from toilets) is being captured and treated to advanced secondary levels and re- used to irrigate the native grass sod.
• The AdvanTex treatment system being used consumes almost no electrical power.
• If residents don’t generate enough wastewater then water collected in the rainwater cistern is automatically added to wastewater system to meet irrigation demand demonstrating seamless integration of the two systems: wastewater and rainwater.
• No PVC was used in either system other than for small parts where no alternative was available.
• All water use on site will be extensively metered and date provided remotely through the integrated system control panel.
• By discharging the treated wastewater in subsurface drip tubing (9” below grade) where 99% of the soils microbial life inhabit, the wastewater treatment process can be completed … thus closing the loop on the natural water cycle. So not only does the system conserve water, it also protects our natural groundwater resources.