[Kalbo]

Agency opposes water recycling at homes - Las Vegas Sun

I think we should be allowed to reuse our water to water yards.

[RedRockAAAA]

Sometimes ya have to read the fine print to preserve your future.

[Buzz123]

What’s the incentive for residents to curb consumption if their water bills drop? water officials argue. Even more water would be drawn from Lake Mead, without returning.

“The quality of graywater is very, very, very low,” Mack said. “Just look at the back of your shampoo bottle or what’s in laundry detergent.”

What a bunch of crap. First of all, if they can't have it back then they can't sell it back to you again. That's their real objection. It's about money. But if we use less water they'll just say they have to charge us more because we're not using enough to sustain their huge profits.

Secondly, it's not OK to use shampoo water on our lawns, but it's OK to dump it back into the lake and use it for drinking? Not to mention the cost of sewage treatment which obviously doesn't get all the soap out anyway. The so called water shortage in Nevada is about politics and money. Always has been, always will be.

[Rebecca40]

Well, that's pretty ridiculous - of course graywayter is the more environmentally sound option, but it decreases someone's profits and benefits the consumer - so lets legislate against it. Typical shortsighted mindset. I think if I had a home that I had no intention of selling (and didn't need to worry about building code violations that no one would likely notice) and I was handy at basic plumbing I could rig up my own system to funnel that graywater from my shower and washing machine back out to my lawn and no one could stop me. Hmmm....I see a grassroots, clandestine plumbing movement on the horizon.

[olecapt]

This is actually not a new stand for SNWA. The problem they have with grey water is that it encourages consumption. The secondary use has no charge and therefore allows the external lawn and tree use without running into the graduated charges of the SNWA systems.

I don't think they care about amateur rigs. First off it is very hard to do. Sewer plumbing is always buried beneath the slab and is hard to get at. It will also negatively impact the value of the home.

It is however easy to do in new construction and that is what they wish to prevent.

Note that SNWA is not consistent about all this. They allow the installation of larger meters in bigger homes which substantially lowers the water rate.

[jfkIII]

Originally Posted by Buzz123

...Secondly, it's not OK to use shampoo water on our lawns, but it's OK to dump it back into the lake and use it for drinking? Not to mention the cost of sewage treatment which obviously doesn't get all the soap out anyway. The so called water shortage in Nevada is about politics and money. Always has been, always will be.

Maybe we should try the shampoo water trick on our lawns in Beautiful Upstate NY. Our preference would naturally be Head&Shoulders...as our lawns seem to get quite a bit of dandruff in the wintertime.

[Kalbo]

Originally Posted by Rebecca40

Well, that's pretty ridiculous - of course graywayter is the more environmentally sound option, but it decreases someone's profits and benefits the consumer - so lets legislate against it. Typical shortsighted mindset. I think if I had a home that I had no intention of selling (and didn't need to worry about building code violations that no one would likely notice) and I was handy at basic plumbing I could rig up my own system to funnel that graywater from my shower and washing machine back out to my lawn and no one could stop me. Hmmm....I see a grassroots, clandestine plumbing movement on the horizon.

Clandestine ops seems the way to go.

[jpk]

The logic that homes will consume even more water is ludicrous. They will consume less because they will cut down on use of city water for irrigation - one of the largest percentages of a homes water consumption.

The statement that water bills will go down, therefore people will not feel bad about running the faucet only confirms the obvious - that your water bill only goes down if there is a net drop in consumption. So what if you spend 5 more minutes in the shower at a few GPM if you cut down on 1,000 gallons of city water for irrigation each month?

[olecapt]

Originally Posted by jpk

The logic that homes will consume even more water is ludicrous. They will consume less because they will cut down on use of city water for irrigation - one of the largest percentages of a homes water consumption.

The statement that water bills will go down, therefore people will not feel bad about running the faucet only confirms the obvious - that your water bill only goes down if there is a net drop in consumption. So what if you spend 5 more minutes in the shower at a few GPM if you cut down on 1,000 gallons of city water for irrigation each month?

They will in fact consume more water net....the water delivered less the water returned through the sewers. Basically the evaporative losses will be increased as a percentage of the water delivered.

That defeats the sharply increasing water rates used by the water purveyors for the upper tier of use. They want to make it hurt to heavily water your grass.

The consumer may not care for it but it makes perfect sense from the SNWA view. And frrom a conservation view it makes it cheaper to use water for irrigation.

[Tiger Beer]

I'm not crazy about things being legistated into laws that restrict people's basic liberties when then it doesn't harm anyone else.

YET...the idea that people move to Las Vegas and have this inherent need to create, water, and maintain lawns in the desert is an even greater mystery.