Maya Creek Ecovillage

The Water Plan

In the past there have been wells dug on the property, so this is a possibility. The quality of the water was questionable as it had a large amount of sulfur in it and so smelled and left stains. A deeper well may not have this problem, and some members may wish to dig one.

Apart from the heavy machinery needed for the drilling, and an increased energy consumption to pump the water up, wells have another drawback. They are tapping into a shared aquifer and almost every single aquifer on the planet is being pumped beyond it's recharge rate, in other words, is being used unsustainably. This assumes that the aquifer is being recharged to some degree, there are aquifers called "fossil aquifers" which essentially do not recharge.

Because of our overuse the water tables are falling in every continent on the planet. This means drilling wells increasingly deep, in some instances using modified oil-drilling technology, and using more and more energy to pump that water higher and higher. This will have increasing ramifications for food production in the near future, until then we'd prefer no to add to this problem.

Rainwater Harvesting

In our area of Missouri we receive an average of 40" of rainfall per year which is on the upper end of the range worldwide. Rainwater is typically very clean water as long as it is harvested from clean surfaces and stored in a clean area. If there is a large amount of air pollution this can be picked up by the rain as it falls, but as of yet this is not an issue in our area and additional filtration can remove most of the dust and other pollutants.

On a small 400 square foot house, a person could potentially collect as much 10,000 gallons with our annual rainfall. Try it out yourself with this rainwater calculator. The only issues involved with this type of water system is making sure that you have a clean catchment area, metal roofs are excellent for this, and that the first 10 gallons or more are allowed to wash any dirt or other material away before the rest of the rain is collected.

Storage

Also with a rainwater system it is necessary to store the water for times of low rainfall. This typically involves the use of a cistern. There are various types of cistern, and the most environmentally friendly method is still up for debate. There are above ground and below ground cisterns. Above ground cisterns can be made of thinner material but face the risk of freezing, and in our climate this would inevitably be a problem. There are cisterns made of plastic, metal, cement, ferro-cement, stone and cement, etc... None of these options would appear to be perfectly sustiainable. I believe stone and cement or ferro-cement are the best options allow us to minimize our use of cement or plastic and their large amount of embodied energy, but this decision is not set in stone(sadly, pun intended).

Pumping and Filtration

In order to keep the plumbing simple we will be using an on-demand RV water pump to pressurize our plumbing. The pump can be run off of our solar array directly as it runs on 12 volt DC and will only be turned on when it detects a drop in pressure, such as when a faucet is opened.

The water will be filtered to a degree as it goes into the cistern, and a floating filter will be used to pump water out of the cistern in order to take water from the cleanest area in the tank, just below the surface. This avoids floating debris as well as the heavier debris which sinks. Water intended for drinking will also pass through additional filtration systems to remove any bacterial or microbial contaminants.

Conservation

While we should be able to harvest all of our water from rainwater, it will be necessary at the same time to minimize our usage. By using dry composting toilets instead of regular flush toilets we will already be ahead of the game, but by installing low flow shower heads, being conscious when the faucet is running, and keeping an eye on the water levels we should not have a problem. Try using this water usage calculator to see your current usage habits.

In the event of a drought it may be necessary to have a water truck come and fill up our tanks. Based on most global warming weather pattern simulations Missouri should be receiving more rainfall in the future. Apparently this will be due to a shift in the jet stream that carries moist tropical weather northward that currently runs along the eastern seaboard.

Laundry

We have not yet figured out exactly how to handle laundry. Hanging clothes out to dry is a no-brainer considering the massive power costs of electric clothers dryers. Washing the clothes in the first place has 2 possibilities. We may buy extremely energy efficient washers which use only 135 watt hours per load and 12-16 gallons of water.

We are also interested in building a bicycle powered washing machine. We have yet to see a plan that has both an agitation and a spin cycle. It may end up that we have 2 bikes ,one for washing and rinsing and another for spin-drying. You can see the directions for the agitating version here and a diagram here. The spin-drying bike setup can be seen here.