permaculture

["Laurence Gaffney" <lgaffney@bigpond.com>]

Re:- Wetland Ecosystem Treatment or WET Systems from Biologic Design.

This is interesting. 

The website says that "WET Systems can be used to treat sewage from 
individual dwellings"

This statement suggests to me that the "Wet System" is the primary treatment 
system for domestic (hither too untreated) raw sewage.

If that is correct I wonder;
1.    How much area is required?
2.    What standard of waste water treatment are they achieving?
3.    Would not there be health issues - being an open system with sewage in 
various stages of "purification"?

The website says that "The plug flow kinetics of the system give a robust 
process which is able to cope with shock loading."

Does any one know what Plug Flow Kinetics are?


Laurence Gaffney
>From venaurafarm@bellsouth.net  Wed Jul  7 21:27:43 2010
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Date: Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:27:37 -0400
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Subject: Re: [permaculture] - Biologic Design
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On 7/7/2010 5:38 PM, Laurence Gaffney wrote:
> Re:- Wetland Ecosystem Treatment or WET Systems from Biologic Design.
>
> This is interesting.
>
> The website says that "WET Systems can be used to treat sewage from 
> individual dwellings"
>
> This statement suggests to me that the "Wet System" is the primary 
> treatment system for domestic (hither too untreated) raw sewage.
>
> If that is correct I wonder;
> 1.    How much area is required?
> 2.    What standard of waste water treatment are they achieving?
> 3.    Would not there be health issues - being an open system with sewage 
> in various stages of "purification"?

Some of the reedbed systems I have heard of, site specific, small, one
household there is an inline septic tank preprocessing waste aerobically
producing blackwater to feed the reedbed.

> The website says that "The plug flow kinetics of the system give a robust 
> process which is able to cope with shock loading."
>
> Does any one know what Plug Flow Kinetics are?

Overall system resilience? On a gradient of 1-10 of biological activity,
closer to 10? System resilience = microbiological/soil & aquatic
creature diversity, synergy, level of combined output with regard to
ability to efficiently process system nutrient input?

On the strength of the ability of duckweed to process raw waste,
there may not be an inline preprocessing system feeding their
constructed wetland. I expect cold winter weather would present problems
for system throughput unless they have made plans to deal with that.

Also their system is so large, is so spread out on site and has so many
diverse components it may be able to handle a very small village, like
an intentional community.

Another thought, individual homes could preprocess waste by using
buckets with compost instead of toilets.

The pictures in their gallery are truly inspiring.