Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Phil Bunch" <pbunch@cox.net>]

I think you want to be very careful of any water contaminated with petroleum products. Some of them are carcinogenic in fairly small doses. Especially cyclic hydrocarbons like benzene.  If the oil slate you mention is anything like oil shale you also should be thinking about heavy metals. If I recall correctly this has been one of the problems with developing oil shale in Colorado.

 

Once again testing would be appropriate and a chat with an expert in environmental health issues would not hurt. In the US we say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

---

From: livingontheland-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:livingontheland-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Dieter Brand
Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2007 9:02 AM
To: Douglas Willhite; Healthy soil and sustainable growing
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] water purifying filters

 

Douglas,

 

I'm also looking for means of water purification. I had hoped

your thread would turn up something useful.

 

We have 4 sources on our land. 2 of them with fairly clear

water supply sufficient water for most of the year. However, in

the summer, when water becomes scarce, I would also like to

use the 2 other sources which are more like mud holes. Other

then the mud (clay particles) there is a high ion content and

some slate oil.

 

This summer, I started experimenting with a small-scale open

gravel- and sand-bed filter. Some of the slate oil came through,

but the water was much clearer and didn't have that much ion

anymore. The problem with an open system is that you can't

use back-flashing to clean your filter when it gets saturated.

I only used it for 3 months in the summer so that didn't matter.

And next year I'm planning on something a little more

sophisticated.

 

The problem basically is: what do you do instead of back-

flashing? I have thought about adding another layer of soil on

top of the sand for growing plants that will take the impurities

out of the water. But I don't know how effective that will be.

Also, I'm not sure which plants to chose (this is not grey water

I'm talking about). The mud (i.e., the clay) doesn't matter, that

would be OK for growing plants, but I would like to do something

about other impurities. Also, I don't know what soil to use for

the filter. Obviously, I wouldn't use manure or fertilizer, but I

wonder if compost would be OK? Or should I just use clay

soil? Or perhaps some black soil from our forest?

 

I'm also thinking of adding a cascade in which the water would

flow from one bowl into another. This would help oxidize the ion

so that it can be filtered out mechanically.

 

Dieter Brand

Portugal

Douglas Willhite <drwillhite@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Hi Folks,
> I'm looking for information, tips, links, etc. on
> homemade, do-it-yourself water purifying filters...

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