Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Tommy Tolson <healinghawk@earthlink.net>]

In my Permaculture Design Course, we learned about, but did not build, 
constructed wetlands, rock and reed structures where plants feed on 
human "waste" and the water coming out is cleaner than what comes out of 
the tap in your kitchen.  Santa Rosa, CA built a system like you're 
talking about, Ken, basically a swamp, and it works so good that it 
scares the workers at the water treatment plant who are really not 
necessary.  The guy who took us on the tour through the plant said 
that.  But they've spent a ton of money to build the plant that services 
several towns on the Santa Rosa Plain and the people who work there are 
politically astute, by necessity, so they have both systems operating, 
side by side.  One's free, and one costs a ton of money to operate.  
They build pipelines all over the place to use up the treated water 
because putting too much of it into the Laguna de Santa Rosa and the 
Russian River makes the wildlife sick, whereas the biosystem puts out 
healthy water.  In "Sol Viva!," Anna Edey talks about flushing her house 
toilet into a worm-filled box of soil and having the water come out 
clean.  John Todd has made a big dent in things with Living Machines 
(www.livingmachines.com).  The site is wonderfully informative.

In Sebastopol, CA they are killing their heritage valley oaks by 
spraying so much treated water on the land that their root structures 
never dry out, and no one figured out what's killing them.  In a class 
called "Sacred Trees" at New College in Santa Rosa, we had to learn to 
listen to trees, and, weird as it seemed to begin with, it was even more 
weird when I got willing and it started happening.  Now I hear them all 
the time.  It makes me crazy sometimes to see the things people do to 
heritage trees like those valley oaks on the Santa Rosa Plain, six, 
seven hundred year old trees dying from human ignorance.  But trying to 
tell folks hasn't worked yet, for me.  It's really hard for me to go to 
college on campuses where there are a few terminally lonely trees 
missing the forests of their "society" because I hear their moans.  One 
Horticulture professor could hear them, too, but didn't advertise it.  
It was a blessing to be understood.

Smiles.
Tommy

On 6/7/10 3:51 PM, pbunch@cox.net wrote:
> How does this bio system work?
>
> ---- Ken Hargesheimer<minifarms2@yahoo.com>  wrote:
>    
> > That 2,000 is nothing compared to what it would be doing.  Raises cotton now. 
> >  We pay 100 of thousands of dollars each year to maintain the chemical 
> > processing of sewage.  The water from the bio system is drinkable.  Please do 
> > your homework on this.
> >   
> > Ken
> >
> > --- On Mon, 6/7/10, Emery Mitchamore<emitch@att.net>  wrote:
> >
> >
> > From: Emery Mitchamore<emitch@att.net>
> > Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] sewage systems
> > To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing"<livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
> > Date: Monday, June 7, 2010, 8:52 AM
> >
> >
> > 2,000 acres is a lot of land!  Can it be used for anything else?  Like 
> > raising switchgrass or cattails for biofuel?  Solar or wind farm?  Does it 
> > produce compost for horticultural uses?  Can the effluent be used for 
> > irrigation, catfish farming or municipal water?  If all it does is process 
> > sewage, I can understand the skepticism.  Surely the proposal can be 
> > sweetened with more functionality.
> >
> >
> > E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
> > www.hillcountrynatives.net
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jun 7, 2010, at 7:02 AM, Ken Hargesheimer wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Several years ago when Lubbock was going to construct a new sewage system, I 
> > tried to get the city to construct a bioligical system.  At that time it 
> > would have taken about 2,000 acres of land.  Many cities around the world use 
> > it.  Proven system. The consulant would not even consider it, of course. 
> > Water leaving the system is drinkable it is so pure. Cost of operating it is 
> > almost nothing.
> >   
> > Ken H
> >
> >
> >
> >   
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