The PermaDesign Weblog, with Nate Downey and Melissa McDonald!

Water Conservation for Locals

by Nate Downey

In a more recent edition of Bienvenidos we had a guide that had tips on how local residents can conserve water.

FOR RESIDENTS

People who live here should do all of the above and then take it up a notch.
• When landscaping, consider a native lawn. Kentucky bluegrass is a no-no. It’s even better to install plastic grass that requires no watering, weeding, fertilizing, or mowing. The best approach to landscaping is to avoid all forms of turf and to harvest stormwater runoff from your roof and driveway. By using passive water harvesting techniques like on-contour swales, wicks, French drains and rain gardens, you can divert this resource to the root systems of drought-tolerant trees, shrubs and perennials.
• You can also follow the steps in the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer’s free book, Roof-Reliant Landscaping. It’s a peer-reviewed step-by-step guide for designing and installing cistern systems for drought-tolerant landscapes that can be independent of any water source other than the sky.
• Know that rebates exist for cisterns, high-efficiency clothes washers, and high-efficiency toilets (HET). These HET porcelain goddesses are not merely “low flow” like the 1.6-gallon flushers that came in during the first wave of toilet rebates. The new ones use 1.28-gallons per flush or less.
• Reusing your greywater (wastewater from bathroom sinks, showers, and laundry) in the landscape does not require a permit as long as you harvest the resources according to New Mexico Environment Department’s guidelines found at http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/
• If you’ve got a leak, and you don’t know how to fix it, call the city at 955-4225. They’d be happy to help.

06/19/2014 | (0) Comments