permaculture

["Kelly Finigan" <kfinigan@spots.ca>]

On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 08:54:14 EST, Marimike6 wrote
> 
> Rainwater catchment is a perfect solution in a place like Hawa'ii. 
> High rainfall, clean air, not a lot of pavement and an unsuitable 
> subsoil for digging wells-- lava rock. This is the kind of place it 
> makes a lot of sense.
> 
RE: water quality: what do you think is in urban air that affects the water 
so badly? I can only think of PM (bits of dust etc), NOx (nitrogen) and SOx 
(sulphur) that MAY settle out from the air...these should be pretty easy to 
clean out of your water supply (e.g. settling process for PM, oxidation [air 
bubbling] for extreme NOx/SOx)

I recall reading a study about rural / agricultural air being potentially 
much more worrisome - high pesticide, herbicide, fungicide levels...these 
COULD be difficult to clean out of your drinking water (even large municipal 
water treatment plants often miss these items along with residual 
antibiotics etc)

THe more I think about this, the possible urban air "contaminants" are 
probably easier to deal with (compare to surface water supply of a town 
downstream of another town that has to deal with a river of treated or 
untreated wastewater and must deal with residual antibiotics, birth control 
drugs [hormone disruptors], various other medications, high chlorine 
residual, and viruses)



> Another kind of place it would make sense would be where there is no 
> viable alternative, like the major African cities. If municipal 
> water supplies are polluted and you can't dig a well, you would 
> pretty much have to rig up something on your roof. 
> 
> I'm fortunate. I live over a couple of hundred feet of fossil beach 
> sand 
> (eastern North Carolina). The rainwater doesn't even pause at the 
> surface before soaking down to the water table. Wells are easy to 
> dig and to maintain. We also have several aquifers down there, so if 
> you get too many neighbors and your well water starts running short 
> in a dry spell, you can just drill another hundred feet down and get 
> the "first sip" of an untapped aquifer. I realize not everyone 
> enjoys this blessing.
> 
sounds like a race to tap the fossil water before your neighbours. Once its 
gone, its gone - just like oil! Groundwater can also have quality problems - 
e.g. agricultural runoff of pesticides and excess fertiliser (there is 
almost always an excess)...causes blue-baby syndrome (lack of oxygen in 
blood) in southern Alberta.



> Count your blessings if you have clean, abundant water. Life gets 
> desperate and sad when the rains don't come and the well don't perk.

Most of us do(even here with an average of 12-13 inches per year)...we just 
let it run into the sewer.

> 
> M. Elvin



--
Kelly Finigan, M.Sc. P.Eng. Permaculture Designer
~ Sustainability consultant & ecological designer ~ 

744 - 4 Street NW
Calgary, Alberta T2N 1P2
phone 1-403-283-7270