‘Gray Water’ Keeps Lawns Green--Often Illegally

When Pacific Palisades resident Barbara Edelman does the family laundry, the 35 gallons of water used to wash and rinse each load is not allowed to simply gurgle away down the drain.

Instead, she diverts the used water from her washing machine to a white plastic tank in her laundry room. And by plugging in a pump connected to her garden hose, she can make the sudsy, grayish liquid do double duty.

“I water the lawn with it,” says Edelman, who calls her system a painless way to recycle more than 300 gallons of water a week. “You’re going to use that water anyway, so why not use it twice? The lawn doesn’t care.”

The only problem is, the use of so-called “gray water”--household waste water from showers, tubs, kitchen and bathroom sinks and washing machines--is illegal in Los Angeles County, as well as in most of the state.

Most municipalities forbid disposal of waste water through any method other than a public sewer system or approved on-site sewage disposal systems, such as septic tanks.

Many health officials strenuously oppose gray water because it can spread disease-causing bacteria and other contaminants.

Last year, a county Board of Supervisors proposal to legalize gray-water usage was killed after a Department of Health Services report warned that the public could mishandle the waste water and cause it to become a “potential health hazard.”

But as the harsh realities of mandatory water rationing due to California’s longest drought in six decades begin to sink in across the state, the tide of official opinion is beginning to shift.

Next week, the California Department of Health Services is expected to issue guidelines to water agencies and city and county officials on the proper way homeowners can use gray water to sustain thirsty gardens. Until recently, the department, which had conducted studies showing that gray water carries dangerous levels of disease-causing microorganisms, had discouraged gray-water use.

On Tuesday Los Angeles County supervisors will again consider a motion dealing with the controversial conservation tactic. But this time, the proposal asks health and public works officials to examine the recycling of gray water through an underground irrigation system, which supporters say would minimize health risks.

“There is a shortage of water, and anything and everything we can do to conserve water and use gray water to irrigate lawns and shrubbery and trees is a benefit to the community,” said Supervisor Mike Antonovich, author of the motion.

Los Angeles city officials also are discussing reviving a similar proposal.

“It’s the only crime that’s good for society,” said so-called “gray-water guru” Robert Kourik, a Sonoma County resident whose 1988 booklet, “Gray Water Use in the Landscape,” has sold 10,000 copies. “People are not going to be dying in the streets from gray water.”

Advocates say that gray water not only can help save precious shrubs, trees and other vegetation that homeowners might otherwise be forced to sacrifice in a drought, but it can produce considerable water savings.

To help their residents cope with the state’s water emergency, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties recently legalized the use of gray water on landscaping.

Larry Farwell, water conservation coordinator for the Goleta Water District, who helped draft Santa Barbara County’s gray-water guidelines, estimates that 25 to 40 gallons per person per day can safely be recycled from showers, bathtubs and washing machines.

He and other gray-water supporters insist that it poses virtually no public health threat if it is used in an underground irrigation system.

In Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, where stiff mandatory cutbacks and other Draconian measures such as bans on lawn watering have gone into effect, officials decided to approve gray water, in part, because they found that they could not stop residents from using it.

“We realized people are going to do it anyway,” said Alison Whitney, a water conservation specialist for the city of Santa Barbara. “The county (environmental health department) realized it, too. (So) we want to make sure that we are telling people how to do it safely.”

Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo forbid homeowners from spraying the used water on the surface, such as for watering lawns. They also differ on what forms of gray water are best. The city of Santa Barbara, for instance, only approves the use of laundry water.

Neither county allows toilet water--called “black water” to differentiate it from other indoor waste water.

Kourik, who helped design Santa Barbara County’s gray-water program, said that soil life essentially neutralizes most of the dangerous microorganisms that gray water contains.

But, according to a study conducted by the California Department of Health Services about eight years ago, bathtub, shower and washing machine waste water can carry unacceptably high levels of coliform bacteria, including fecal bacteria.

Los Angeles County health officials cited that study last year in urging the Board of Supervisors to abandon a proposal that could have led to legalizing residential uses of gray water.

Numerous other studies have demonstrated that harmful microorganisms in treated effluent sprayed on the ground can survive in the soil and reach the ground-water system, according to Marylynn Yates, a specialist in the soil and environmental sciences department at UC Riverside.

She noted, however, that none of the studies were conducted on gray water and that she does not oppose gray watering of plants during a drought.

Mike Kiado, a senior sanitary engineer for the California Department of Health Services, who wrote the new state gray-water guidelines, recommends that young children be kept away from areas that have been irrigated with gray water.

He said that it is safe to apply gray water to lawns, fruit trees and shrubs, but the water should not be sprayed in order to avoid inhaling any germs. For vegetable gardens, he recommends using water from rinsing dishes, “visibly clear” rinse water from washing machines that has not been used to launder diapers, and water from bathroom sinks, spas or swimming pools.

GRAY WATER DOS AND DON’TS

Gray-water experts offer these basic tips to homeowners who are considering using gray water to stretch their water allotments:

DO:

Use the water from washing machines, showers, bath tubs and bathroom sinks.

Set up an underground irrigation system, using a perforated pipe buried in a gravel-filled trench or leach field.

Use biodegradable detergents.

Distribute the water as evenly as possible.

DON’T:

Use water from the toilet, dishwasher or water used to launder diapers.

Use gray water that a sick person has bathed or washed clothes in.

Spray the gray water on top of the ground or allow it to form puddles or flow into the street.

Use soaps or detergents with enzymes, bleaches, boron, sodium or chlorine.

Use gray water on acid-loving plants, such as citrus trees, azaleas and rhododendrons, or on edible plants.

For more detailed information, consult Robert Kourik’s “Gray Water Use in the Landscape,” available for $6 from Edible Publications, P.O. Box 1841, Santa Rosa, CA 95402. The phone number is (707) 874-2606.