Arroyo Community Garden 1st Workday

After a few months of meetings, we had the first workday for the Arroyo Community Garden at the Living Word Church this Saturday. I shot some time lapse of the work. You should probably watch it full screen. No dramatic digging or building happened, but if you look closely, you can see the stakes and strings which signify where the water lines and walkways will go. Next step is trenching.

Water Bill Progress

We just got our most recent water bill and our consumption is at an all time low. The water consumption is measured in hundred cubic feet (1 hcf = 748 gallons). We got ours down from 11 hcf last period to 5 hcf this period. It is about a two month period. The average household here is 18 hcf so we are doing better than average, but there are only two of us, so I am sure we can do better.

Time Sure Flies!

It has been almost a month since I wrote anything.  First I got sick with something flu like (maybe swine flu, who knows?).  Then we also built a bathroom upstairs.  The old one was a disaster area when we bought this place and had to be gutted just to get rid of the mold under the floor and shower.  Then I went to the Association of Moving Image Archivists in St. Louis, MO. Then we continued with the bathroom.  Then we finished painting the house and now it is raining.

Now I know this is not a home improvement blog, or at least I don't want it to be, but we tried to be on the eco-side by getting a watersense certified toilet.  This is an EPA related program that requires toilets to use 1.28 gallons per flush or less and clear out a certain amount of solid waste at the same time. I have seen estimates of 3-5 gallons per flush on older toilets and 1.6 gallons on newer ones.  A lot of those 1.6 gallon toilets were not very good and required multiple flushes to do the job.  Our new toilet is made by Toto and is very very good. One quick small quiet flush.

We also used a low flow shower head that uses 1.5 gallons per minute.  So far I am not totally thrilled with it.  Several months ago I went to the water department and they gave me a free cheapo shower head that uses 2 gallons per minute and has a "massage" setting.  It was free and even put less steam on the mirror than the head we got with our original faucet (theoretically you could save electricity if  you use an exhaust fan in the bathroom).  According to energysavers.gov shower heads from before 1992 shower heads used about 5.5 gpm and now Federal regulations require them to use no more than 2.5 gpm. I guess 1.5 is below average and that is what I am all about.

We are very happy to be able to do the same tasks with less water. Not only will it help reduce demand on a scarce resource, it will save money on our water bill.  We didn't realize it when we got the toilet, but you can get rebates toward a new toilet in many municipalities. We did manage to get a rebate when we bought a washing machine, for selecting an efficient model.

Next step is to start collecting rainwater.

The Water Bill

Since it was so very hot several weeks ago, we had to water the garden. Since we have a lot of new compost and rapidly growing plants, the soil was thirsty. In our last place we were on a well with septic, so it is a new thing to pay water bills. It is also new to pay sewer bills.

In Petaluma, your sewer bill is based on the winter average. Since it rains in the winter and is dry in the summer, this is a sensible way to figure out how much water is going to the sewer without metering the sewer. Since we have not been here for a full year, we do not have a winter average to base our sewer bill upon. This means they look at our current water use or the average winter water usage of households in our area and bill us based on whichever number is lower. It has cooled down recently, and our soil has reached some sort of baseline water saturation, so we have been able to ratchet down the watering schedule. Hopefully our next bill will be more humane. I am hoping to get some rainwater catchment happening before the rain comes so we can reduce our pressure on local water supplies next summer.

Fortunately, even at peak watering season we are using less water than the winter average for our area. Unfortunately, the sewer rate is about twice as expensive as the water rate and I know our winter usage will be much lower. It was pretty pricey to water the garden this summer because we are subsidizing the new waste water treatment facility, which I am pretty OK with because...

The other day, we went to Shollenberger Park, which is still not saved, by the way, and we were surprised to see a fence gone and a new sign. Our park had grown to several times its original size thanks to the Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility. I just found some pictures of it here. Who knew that waste water could be so beautiful? I hope we can take a tour inside the building as well soon.