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"W", you are off the mark. Let it go. The city water is not that great either. They are on the E side so the flow is predominantly from the ocean so not much acid rain here.
I have seen many places in puna using banana to cover the tanks. Their roots are non invasive and you get the fruit as a bonus. I think it's the best option there is. Some people also like to build the lanai over it and have a double purpose. I would go with the cheap banana way.
In my experience, i'd say the opposite. There's no good reason not to drink the water, if the system is set up properly and well maintained. You need three elements, which taken together are a mini version of a municipal water treatment system... filters, which remove particulate matter; added chlorine, which kills pathogens; and a final sterilization unit, using UV light or an ozone generator.
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We do not its only for showers, doing dishes, clothes washing, cleaning. We do have a 4 bedrooom commercial filter on our system though even though our home is less then 1,000 sq.ft. We still do not choose to drink from it although I think it prob is safe enough.
It better be. If it's not safe to drink, it's not really safe to shower or wash dishes in, because some disease organisms can enter the body through microscopic cuts and scrapes in the skin. Probably not you, but some people have the misconception that simply running water through a couple of swimming pool filters makes it "good enough," but it's not. I do suggest that anyone with a catchment system get the CTAHR manual I linked to above, and follow its directions on getting the water tested at least once a year.
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As far as covering the catchment (hide it) how about bambo fencing 6X8 I believe and put a fence around your catchment.
Yes, that was already suggested in comment #2. OP likes living plants better. I'm thinking, he could add Mark.ca's suggestion of bananas to my suggestion of hibiscus, and maybe throw in some nice anthuriums at the bottom, and hey, before you know it, the screen for the tank could become the beauty spot of the yard.
Eh, don't poke sleeping dogs, let them catch their beauty rest.
If you go the banana route for hiding the tank, the "Chinese Dwarf" banana only gets about seven to eight feet tall including the leaves. They'd not get tall enough to drop stuff in your tank. If there was any overflow from the tank, they'd enjoy that, too. It's really hard to overwater or over fertilize banana plants. The fruit from the Chinese Dwarf is pretty good, too. And they produce a HUGE rack of bananas.
Lol, no problem folks. You all drink your acid rain mixed with baking soda that sits in open air all you want. I'll take treated tap water anytime.
Don't worry. The government has never failed to fulfill 100% of it's constituent's needs, and no municipal water supply has ever accidentally poisoned the population with microorganisms or accidentally on purpose with chlorine or fluoride.
Here's a nice article about people intentionally peeing in a water reservoir. Two things are of note: 1) People seldom get caught doing it and 2) Animals do it 24/7.
Don't worry. The government has never failed to fulfill 100% of it's constituent's needs, and no municipal water supply has ever accidentally poisoned the population with microorganisms or accidentally on purpose with chlorine or fluoride.
Here's a nice article about people intentionally peeing in a water reservoir. Two things are of note: 1) People seldom get caught doing it and 2) Animals do it 24/7.
I guess I'll try this again since someone else tried to intentionally derail my original point which was: The best way to hide a catchment tank is to not buy a place with a catchment tank.
On the now derailed topic - I don't care if some dude pees in a reservoir Or animals. Or whatever. I don't believe for a second that a private home can purify water like a municipality can where the water is tested over and over and over again. The number of chemicals tested at the federal and state level makes for a very long list.
I personally don't want water dropping from the sky caught at a home in Hawaii, Oregon, Mississippi, or Timbuktu. I'm equal opportunity not wanting a private individual giving me water to drink or shower with they treated themselves. Period.
The natural superiority of rainwater over groundwater for domestic water supply
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Originally Posted by whtviper1
I don't believe for a second that a private home can purify water like a municipality can where the water is tested over and over and over again.
Yes, they do have to test for lots of things because so many different nasty things get into ground water. A private home with a catchment system has a huge head start over municipal water supplies, because rainwater is so much closer to pure water to begin with.
Here's a list of some of the many contaminants that Honolulu Bureau of Water Safety (HBWS) reports they have found in the water supply in Honolulu County.
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What Kinds of Contaminants are a Concern to Drinking Water?
Contaminants that may be present in source water include:
Microbial contaminants, such as viruses and bacteria, which may come from sewage treatment plants, septic systems, agricultural livestock operations, and wildlife.
Inorganic contaminants, such as salts and metals, which can be naturally-occurring or result from urban stormwater runoff, industrial or domestic wastewater discharges, oil and gas production, mining, or farming.
Pesticides and herbicides, which may come from a variety of sources such as agriculture, urban stormwater runoff, and residential uses.
Organic chemical contaminants, including synthetic and volatile organic chemicals, which are by-products of industrial processes and petroleum production, and can also come from gas stations, urban stormwater runoff, and septic systems. Radioactive contaminants, which can be naturally-occurring or
be the result of oil and gas production and mining activities.
Some of the specific contaminants that have been found in Honolulu County source water include:
Dibromochloropropane (DBCP) is an organic chemical formerly used in Hawaii as a soil fumigant in pineapple cultivation and a petroleum additive. Not found in rainwater.
1,2-Dichloropropane (DCP) is an organic chemical used as a solvent and pesticide that may occur in drinking water by leaching into groundwater. It also may come from improper waste disposal and discharge from industrial chemical factories. Not found in rainwater.
Dieldrin is an organic chemical once used as a pesticide for controlling ground termites and may occur in drinking water by leaching into groundwater. Not found in rainwater.
Ethylene dibromide (EDB) is an organic chemical formerly used in Hawaii as a soil fumigant in pineapple cultivation and petroleum additive. It has been found in some groundwater wells in Central Oahu.
Fluoride occurs naturally in groundwater. According to EPA, it may also come from the erosion of natural deposits or discharged from fertilizer and aluminum factories. Not found in rainwater.
Heptachlor epoxide is an organic chemical formed by the chemical and biological transformation of heptachlor in the environment. Heptachlor was once used as a non-agricultural insecticide. Heptachlor and its epoxide adsorbs strongly to soil. Not found in rainwater.
Hexavalent Chromium (Cr(VI)) is a toxic form of the element chromium found in chromate paints and chromate anti-corrosion coatings, which are used in large quantities at military facilities.Not found in rainwater.
Lead–If present, elevated levels of lead can cause serious health problems, especially for pregnant women and young children. Lead in drinking water is primarily from materials and components associated with service lines and home plumbing. Not found in rainwater.
Nitrate (as nitrogen) occurs naturally in groundwater. According to EPA, nitrates may come from runoff from fertilizer use or leaching from septic tanks, sewage, or erosion of natural deposits. Nitrate in drinking water at levels above 10 parts per million (ppm) is a health risk for infants of less than six months of age. Not found in rainwater.
Nitrite (as nitrogen) occurs naturally in groundwater. According to EPA, nitrites may come from runoff from fertilizer use or leaching from septic tanks, sewage, or erosion of natural deposits. Nitrite levels in drinking water in excess of the MCL could cause serious illness or be fatal to infants below the age of six months. Not found in rainwater.
Radium occurs naturally in groundwater from the erosion of natural deposits. Not found in rainwater.
Simazine may occur from herbicide runoff. Not found in rainwater.
Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) is an organic chemical that maycome from leaching from PVC pipes, discharge from factories, and dry cleaners. Not found in rainwater.
Trichloroethylene (TCE) is an organic chemical that may come from metal degreasing sites and other factories Not found in rainwater.
1,2,3-Trichloropropane (TCP) is an organic chemical formerly used as a soil fumigant in agriculture and as a gasoline additive. It has been found in a number of wells in Central Oahu Not found in rainwater.
Uranium occurs from the erosion of natural deposits Not found in rainwater.
Vanadium is a metal that naturally occurs in many different minerals and in fossil fuel deposits. Not found in rainwater.
You know the old saying "Garbage In, Garbage Out"? That can be applied to city water treatment. That's why so many people drink bottled water in American cities, because they don't trust the urban water supplies which start out with so many known contaminants showing up in their testing.
By contrast rainwater starts out completely pure, coalescing into drops from water vapor, possibly picking up dust particles as they fall, and in the case of the Big Island, possibly picking up particles of harmless volcanic ash and dissolving hydrogen sulfide gas... forming a weak acid, less acidic than tomato juice. The treatment process to handle these is simple, and is mostly done to ensure against the rare possibility of contamination occurring in the collection and handling process, such as buffering the acid to a more neutral pH to reduce corrosion of metal plumbing parts, and adding chlorine to kill possible pathogens... just the way the Feds require that cities do.
And for those who have any residual concern about the safety of drinking rainwater after normal treatment, a final pass through an inexpensive ceramic dome or candle style water filter will yield water of a purity and a quality that no municipality in the country is likely to be able to match.
And on a whole different level, because rainwater doesn't contain all the dissolved minerals that groundwater may, it's naturally "rainwater soft," so bathing and shampooing and the like use less soap and rinse cleaner with less water, something visitors often comment about when they first experience it...
Really! Duh, not found in rainwater? Uranium! Did you even read your list. Flouride? This isn't Great Britain. Show us a catchment water supply sample versus city supplied. How often is catchment tested by the state?
Really! Duh, not found in rainwater? Uranium! Did you even read your list. Flouride? This isn't Great Britain.
Don't forget, that data came from Honolulu's official water supply board. They inlude fluoride... house rules, apparently because of the law banning its addition to the municiple water supply, so I inluded it.
Fluoride and other naturally occurring minerals found in the Honolulu water supply are mostly dissolved out of rock and soil. And in the case of fluoride in particular, the naturally occurring fluoride in groundwater, found to some degree almost everywhere, is supplemented by the drainage and sewage coming out of the military bases, because by federal law the water supply on them must be fluoridated for dental health purposes. (It's part of the reason military kids raised on base have only 1/3 the cavities, on average, that regular county residents have drinking unfluoridated water).
Also, lets not forget that depleted uranium "spotter rounds" were used in Davy Crockett warheads at Schofield Barracks between 1960 and 1968, and nobody even knows how much of that material is stiil scattered around there, and on the Big Island. But the Army had to get a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission just to gather and store the fragments, once that story got out. Traces of that uranium have been leaching into the ground water for more than 50 years.
The list from HBWS of scary pesticides and herbicides and industrial chemicals found in the groundwater, many of them known carcinogens, is only partial, and frankly, it's out of date. The latest studies are also finding that a variety of pharmaceuticals are now turning up in the groundwater, such as birth control hormones, and mood altering drugs like anti-depressants, as well as some illegal drugs. Some of these substances are very persistent in the environment once they've been excreted out into the wastewater system. A key problem is there's very little research into the long term effects of the unintended low doses of these powerful chemicals that people are getting in their municipal water supplies.
And then there are the major doses of contaminants and pollutants that are peculiar to Oahu, by virtue of the very long presence of major military operations there. The shipyards alone have long used massive quantities of dangerous solvents and toxic materials that somehow find their way into the water.
I found it interesting to take look at the water quality testing report which the Honolulu Water Supply folks published for your neighborhood, Kailua, and it found, among other things, measurable amounts of...
In my experience, i'd say the opposite. There's no good reason not to drink the water, if the system is set up properly and well maintained.
I'm only going off of what people I know and ask if they drink theres and they have all said no - so I guess I stand corrected. In the circle of people I know the majority of THEM have decided not to I cannot speak for majority of all. So I retrack my statement
My husband worked for a small town water supply plant so we he is familar on clarifing the water and what steps to take. You may be amazed on how this is actually done, its not all that high tech (well atleast in the town he worked at and it had to pass routine inspections by the county and it did pass) - for this reason and his experience I do think our catchment water is safe to do dishes, clothes, showers and probaly even drink if we so chose to do so but we choose not to. I guess its more me then my husband I choose not to.
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The natural superiority of rainwater over groundwater for domestic water supply
