Batten Down the Hatches

(Originally posted on waterefficiency.net)

By Elizabeth Cutright
Editor
Water Efficiency


Here in California, we’re bracing for a fortnight of winter storms that, while arriving late in the season, promise to inundate the state with several inches of rain over the next several days. As I watch trees bent and lashed by the wet weather, I think it’s perhaps the perfect time to look back on some of the rainwater harvesting articles we’ve covered in the magazine.
In “Acing the ‘Greening’ Curve” by Sue Marquette Poremba, we highlighted Duke University’s Pratt College of Engineering that, along with help from The Home Depot, designed a “smart home,” that includes two 1,000-gallon rainwater collection systems from BRAE rainwater systems irrigate the property and provide water for toilets and the clothes washing machine, as well as landscape irrigation.
If you take a look at the University of Georgia’s water conservation program (“Water Task Force”), you can read all about how the university worked hard to save over 84 million gallons of water during a five-year period. Instrumental to that program was the utilization of rain gardens, and the modification of two existing campus buildings to include cisterns capable of capturing rainwater and air-conditioning condensation for reuse.
And finally, in Margaret Buranen’s article, “Raincatcher's Delight”, we took a long look at Austin’s Seaholm project, which includes an extensive rainwater harvesting system.
So what do you think? Does rainwater harvesting get enough attention? And should cities take up the call, or should we fall back on the old mantra of individual responsibility?