Rainwater Harvesting

[gatorback]

Hey, what does Jacksonville do to foster harvesting rainwater?  Is there any help  offered by the city for this all important endeavor?   

[ELeroyReed]

This is going to be the "as far as I know" answer, but.... not as far as I know.  :-)

Rainwater harvesting can be a very simple or very complex process.  I harvest rainwater at home by positioning my gutters into a big barrell.  I use it to water my container plants. 

More complex reclaimed water systems can be implemented but some building codes can make it difficult to plumb them for interior use.  For example, did you know that some locality codes specify that waterless urinals have to be plumbed for water?  Tell me how much sense that makes?  Code is struggling to keep up with low impact development and sustainable construction. And, don't get me started on homeowner's associations making it impossible...

Again, as far as I know there are no incentives per se for harvesting, though it's definitely the right thing to do for both your pocket and the environment. 

If anyone else has information, I'd love to hear it too!

Ellen

[Ocklawaha]

Seeing this outside the door discourages humans from going out
back to water the cacti.

I have 5 acres out in California, that is really 500 miles from no-where and 2 feet from HELL. But it's fun to go out and hear the latest UFO storys and count the snakes. I have 5 or 6 big (for California) pine trees. They are fed off of a Grey-Water system, that collects everything from sinks, washer, and rain gutters... (but it almost never rains). The water really smells and comes out with soap sludge, but it keeps all of the plants green. Green plants attract all of the little animals which often attracts the really big and nasty animals so there is some risk involved. Guess it's not nearly as exciting here. Austin may get some action in the dry months if your West of town in the hills. Rattle Snakes and like California, some really, really big kittys that feed off of rabbits and sometimes people too.  

We use a large service station type tank 30,000 gallon(?) buried in the yard that supplys drinking water to the cabin. Another smaller tank holds the storm water, and discharge. Screen filters keep the solids out of the tank. There is a giant dip stick for each to check the water levels. The property is on a slope and the fresh water has it's own pump to provide pressure to distribute the water. The Grey water system is all downhill. It is collected down below and distributed mostly by hand. I'd like to place a skimmer pump on top to take the water off for watering but I need to engineer a automatic cut off for low water or solids. It's the only way I can figure to keep things going when wer're not around. When my oldest boy was out at our place last, it was cold as #@%!& outside. So he got the bright idea of going out AT NIGHT and warming up the car. I told him that it wasn't the brighest idea he ever had. being a tough Army assult trooper, he shrugged it off and went on out. About 4 minutes passed and he came flying in the door. "Oh my GOD dad! I looked and 20 feet behind me was the biggest cat I ever saw, just standing in the driveway looking at me!" I told him Mr. Kitty didn't see him, he was looking for Pork-Chops al la Airborne...  Now he won't check the water at night either, darn that cat!


Kitty loves the green space of Water Conservation, just
don't try and pet him... or her...


Ocklawaha

[gatorback]

Baring the occasional brown bear in Mandarin I don't think kitty would have a problem checking the water in Jacksonville.  My question is what the heck does jacksonville support green wise?

[ELeroyReed]

Well...  Here are a few potential upcomings:

According to Robert Schuester from the Evironmental Protection Board, they are trying to convince City Council to allow "Front of Line" permitting privilege for those who commit to building a LEED-certified structure.  They have also recommended a city "Green Champion" to coordinate internal green programs within the COJ.  The goal of the latter is for that person to pay back their own salary in savings via recycling, process-streamlines, integrated design programs, etc.  Their sole purpose would be to save the city by implementing green programs.  Strategically, it would work, too.

Sad thing is...  I think Schuester is going to have a fight on his hands to get those things through, even though they make perfect sense and would cost the city nothing.  Several builders and contractors are already skeptical of the "Front of Line" program, which only shows that they are still not committed to green building.  Others think hiring a "green champion" would just be another expense to the goverment and do not intend to give that person a chance to make it happen.  Sad, sad, sad.

For the many that say "yes", there's always the few that say "but what if..." and then everything stops.  I think that's where we're going to run into trouble with green initiatives.  The "But what if's" are going to hold things back.

Ellen

[Skot David Wilson]

Okay, guess who.... and what does skot have to say on this???
Since a picture is worth a thousand words....
http://agreengardengrows.blogspot.com
Look at the picture of the girl at the bottom of the page...notice the white (300 gallon tote) her head somewhat blocks, or the blue 55 on the patio?
By the way, if anyone wants a 55 blue plastic drum or a 275-300 gallon tote, call me....
I'll get ya one cheap..
skot
781-9473

[Skot David Wilson]

And Elroy.... Green homes are easy to build where people think green and where greedy builders out for a quick buck don't have so much pull...
Jacksonville is Bible belt, and to them, if God didn't create nu-wool they'll stay with eco-unfriendly. Just in case you are interested... http://whiteroofamerica.blogspot.com
If you can't open the window, turn down the heat!
Skot

[Ocklawaha]

Building green? Wow Man! Like 1969 all over again huh? Hey, I had a friend that built a three room house out of empty beer bottles, filled with Crest Toothpaste! The bottles were quite easy for us to empty and after about 1,000 of them, no one could remember what the toothpaste was for, but it made the place smell really good. The homemade glue started giving way when some drunken fool tried to open a window...and the place didn't have any windows. We ended up with a huge space for a future sliding glass door, but then the roof started sagging. Rather then fix the roof, we just tunneled our way to daylight and hitched a ride back to San Francisco. Today the whole compound is roped off as a suspected refuge for the highly endangered Big-Foot. It's really sort of funny because the big hairy guy used to party with us...That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Moral of the story, NEVER tunnel out of a toothpaste and beer house with a leaking roof and rain falling, it's a DAMN GOOD way to collect rain water.

Ocklawaha