Author Topic: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns  (Read 10238 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline ocala

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 4383
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #25 on: April 08, 2015, 08:19:05 PM »
I have a 275 gallon tote collecting roof runoff for supplemental watering. Our aluminum shingle roof also condenses a fair amount of dew some nights that runs off into it. I measured it once and posted that to another forum. I'll have to look for it.

Good article.  Thanks.  There are a few people that are using gray water and also collecting rain water in huge containers to water the lawn and whatever.  When we had our last big drought, my neighbor collected rain water in a 55 gal. drum and used that to water the lawn and plants.

Here in Oregon it is illegal to collect rain water in any form.  :?
A while back there was another discussion like this and someone stated this same thing.
Heck it might have even been you Joe.
The blues had a baby and they named it Rock & Roll

Offline SlowModem

  • Weather at the speed of dialup!
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 6641
  • WX @ 26.4 kbs
    • Watts Bar Weather
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #26 on: April 08, 2015, 08:19:58 PM »
Here in Oregon it is illegal to collect rain water in any form.  :?

That has to be one of the craziest things I have ever heard of.  I believe someone could beat that in court. That just seems wrong to me.
Greg Whitehead
Ten Mile, TN USA

Offline CW2274

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 6731
    • Conditions @ CW2274 West Tucson-Painted Hills Ranch
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #27 on: April 08, 2015, 08:24:30 PM »
Here in Oregon it is illegal to collect rain water in any form.  :?

That has to be one of the craziest things I have ever heard of.  I believe someone could beat that in court. That just seems wrong to me.
Hence my mosquito comment.

Offline Harryca

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 756
    • Union City, CA Weather
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #28 on: April 08, 2015, 11:45:33 PM »
Water trucks are a good business in CA.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102569793

Well, not quite.  From the same article:

Quote
The city of Clovis is considering cutting off the flow to trucks that deliver water to outlying areas. Such a move could be devastating for Central Valley residents that now rely on water trucks for essential needs such as cooking, showering, toilets and the like.

Offline Harryca

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 756
    • Union City, CA Weather
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #29 on: April 08, 2015, 11:50:41 PM »
Here in Oregon it is illegal to collect rain water in any form.  :?

That has to be one of the craziest things I have ever heard of.  I believe someone could beat that in court. That just seems wrong to me.
Hence my mosquito comment.

Water dept. lobbyist?  You know, "we don't want people collecting rain water because they will buy less water and we lose money".

Offline SlowModem

  • Weather at the speed of dialup!
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 6641
  • WX @ 26.4 kbs
    • Watts Bar Weather
Greg Whitehead
Ten Mile, TN USA

Offline Harryca

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 756
    • Union City, CA Weather
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #31 on: April 09, 2015, 12:46:32 AM »
Use all you want for one flat rate!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/08/us-usa-california-drought-idUSKBN0MZ14V20150408

 #-o

Geeeeez, and here we are getting zinged with higher rates if we use too much water or threatened to cut the water off if it runs into the street a little bit.  I should have moved to Sacramento.   :-(

Offline Mark / Ohio

  • Live from Mars!
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 2511
    • Fairfield County Weather
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #32 on: April 09, 2015, 01:16:20 AM »
You could do it the old fashioned way and dig an underground cistern.  No barrels to see and no one knows you have it unless you tell them.  That's how my grandparents watered their gardens.  One sprinkling can at a time from a hand pump.  Pump could be inside a garage or tool shed. 

I don't think I could handle living under the thumb of a HOA.  Those tend to be run by people I don't get along with too well.  The kind of nosy people that think they need to both know about and run everyone's business yet are barely competent enough to take care of themselves.   :roll:

Edit:  Some of the old historic homes around here had the rain water cistern under the basement floor.  Then they pumped it either by hand or with an old hit-miss engine up to a storage tank in the attic and gravity fed it to the bathrooms and sinks.  They were the first houses with "indoor plumbing" in the area.
« Last Edit: April 09, 2015, 01:32:07 AM by Mark / Ohio »
Mark 
2002 Davis VP I Wireless, WeatherLink (Serial), GRLevel3, VirtualVP, StartWatch, Weather Display, Windows 10


Offline gwwilk

  • Southeast Lincoln Weather
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 2578
    • SouthEast Lincoln, NE Weather
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #33 on: April 09, 2015, 07:36:41 AM »
Xeriscaping, xeriscaping, xeriscaping...
Regards, Jerry Wilkins
gwwilk@gmail.com

Offline Harryca

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 756
    • Union City, CA Weather
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #34 on: April 09, 2015, 05:04:56 PM »
Xeriscaping, xeriscaping, xeriscaping...

I've heard of a few people doing that around here.  I may resort to that myself if the drought continues.

The new slogan that has been floating around here is, Brown is the New Green.

Offline Bushman

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 7549
    • Eagle Bay Weather
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #35 on: April 09, 2015, 06:42:04 PM »
I have a 275 gallon tote collecting roof runoff for supplemental watering. Our aluminum shingle roof also condenses a fair amount of dew some nights that runs off into it. I measured it once and posted that to another forum. I'll have to look for it.

Good article.  Thanks.  There are a few people that are using gray water and also collecting rain water in huge containers to water the lawn and whatever.  When we had our last big drought, my neighbor collected rain water in a 55 gal. drum and used that to water the lawn and plants.

Here in Oregon it is illegal to collect rain water in any form.  :?

A slight exaggeration.  http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/08/16/man-jailed-for-collecting-rainwater-in-illegal-reservoirs-on-his-property/
Need low cost IP monitoring?  http://wirelesstag.net/wta.aspx?link=NisJxz6FhUa4V67/cwCRWA or PM me for 50% off Wirelesstags!!

Offline DoctorKnow

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 1982
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #36 on: April 09, 2015, 07:56:07 PM »
Here in Oregon it is illegal to collect rain water in any form.  :?

That has to be one of the craziest things I have ever heard of.  I believe someone could beat that in court. That just seems wrong to me.

I thought we lived in the USA? I am beginning to wonder with dumb laws like this. We have too many laws and they just keep coming up with more and more of them and each one dumber than the one before... No wonder our jails are full.

Offline weatherforyou

  • Moderator
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 545
  • My weather is on WeatherForYou.com. Is yours?
    • http://www.weatherforyou.com
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #37 on: April 09, 2015, 08:05:15 PM »
I did overstate it some.  Oregon code says only roof surfaces may be used for harvesting rainwater.  And then there are requirements for "roof washers" and other things.  We looked into it when we bought our house out in the forest.  We just wanted to put a couple tanks out in the higher clear corners of our property as a collection system for non-potable use but it became very complicated.  I guess I could have built a so called "roof" on a shed or something.  But the permitting process was fairly complicated.  So we just stick with our very deep well.
Joe Torsitano


Offline SLOweather

  • Global Moderator
  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 3456
    • Weatherelement Moline IL
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #38 on: April 10, 2015, 03:11:28 PM »
Different states or other jurisdictions view water differently. Some places (Colorado?) seem to treat any water as a public resource, whether it falls on you or your property flows through it on the surface, or is underground. You aren't supposed to capture rain or surface water, and if you install a well on your property, you probably have to get permission from a local water authority, and possibly meter it and pay a "pump tax" on the volume that you pump. Grey or black water is probably not your either. I suppose you could think of it as renting the water and returning it when you are done.

California treats water as private property, unless otherwise deeded away or similar, with a few exceptions. If it fall on you or your property, it's yours. If it's under your property it's yours. If it flows through your property on the surface from somewhere else, it's probably not yours.

Hence the problems we are now experiencing with drought, uncontrolled water pumping and well drilling, subsidence, and depleted aquifers. Here's a litle factoids about wells and pumping. The amount of electricity needed to pump the water to ground level increases as the square of the depth. Twice as deep, 4 times the power required.

At least when the County approved our development, they required extensive hydrogeological studies, imposed a (generous) allocation per lot, and required the 2 tract developers to deed the water rights to our water company. Interestingly, those of us on the original 10 acre parcels retain our individual water rights, while also sharing them with company wells placed in easements on our properties.

Offline Dr Obbins

  • Forecaster
  • *****
  • Posts: 1152
Re: PWSweather.com, The California Drought and Green Lawns
« Reply #39 on: April 10, 2015, 08:08:55 PM »
Here in Oregon it is illegal to collect rain water in any form.  :?

That has to be one of the craziest things I have ever heard of.  I believe someone could beat that in court. That just seems wrong to me.

I thought we lived in the USA? I am beginning to wonder with dumb laws like this. We have too many laws and they just keep coming up with more and more of them and each one dumber than the one before... No wonder our jails are full.
Land of the Free!  #-o
"In October 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population. While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of the world's prisoners.[2] Imprisonment of America's 2.3 million prisoners, costing $24,000 per inmate per year, and $5.1 billion in new prison construction, consumes $60.3 billion in budget expenditures."

 

anything