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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] greywater or graywater?

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  • From: John Schinnerer <john@eco-living.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] greywater or graywater?
  • Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 19:37:55 -1000

Aloha,

There are also near-surface and surface systems for leach fields http://www.infiltratorsystems.com/. There is a mound system that a friend of mine had approved in the coastal mountains of California.

I had a link some years ago for a company doing the mound systems but can't find it at the moment.
Friends are planning to use one on some land near Pt. Townsend, WA as they are apparently acceptable by code there. They cost a bunch more than the "usual" septic and in their case will definitely require imported materials (sharp concrete sand usually according to one source) as they are in a high water table area with clayey soils.

I'll try to get more information about the mound system. I am aware that temperature constraints in many parts of the world will mitigate against the mound and near-surface leach fields, but I just wanted to point out that there are possibilities.

If you've got incredible deep healthy soil the "usual" leachfield may also be OK.
Holmgren suggests that "A metre or two of free-draining, well-structured loam and clay loam soil can destroy pathogenic organisms in sewage water...Where such favourable soils exist, the much-maligned septic tank absorption systems work well." ('Permaculture', p. 107)

I reckon the vast majority of leachfields do not have anything near those conditions.

Plus it's still not optimum use of the nutrients in most cases - hard to apply leachfield leachings flexibly to your mulch basins and swales and so on as is possible with a graywater system designed for that.

John S.

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John Schinnerer - MA, Whole Systems Design
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Whole Systems Design Services
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