From the category archives:

Water & Water Conservation

Rising Seas – How long can we hold back the ocean?

by schmidt on August 10, 2009 · 0 comments

in Water & Water Conservation

As sea levels rise, coastal flooding will increase.  Projections are for a 1.4 meter rise over the next 100 years, and that could be on the low end.  Different local municipalities have proposed different strategies for dealing with this inevitable fact.  In our own backyard rising tides will flood sections of the Sunset, Marina, & Financial districts, much of the Eastern Waterfront, as well as towns and cities throughout the bay area.

The San Francisco Bay Conservation & Development Commission is a state agency tasked with addressing bay infill – I bet you didn’t know that at several points in the last 100 odd years there have been serious discussions about damming part or all of the SF Bay.  The latest manifestation of this is the rising tides foundation recent competition for proposals to protect those areas of the bay most threatened by rising ocean levels due to global warming.

I am grateful for these smart people and the thought they are putting into this problem; but I believe it is all on the wrong track.  Holding back the oceans has been tried, and while it has worked in some cases, as cities like Venice attest to, when it fails, as it did to New Orleans, the devastation can be irreparable.  This is a problem that has to be addressed before it occurs; anything after the fact is like giving a condemned prisoner a last meal.  The Raydike system is particularly interesting, as it proposes a system of light beams installed right away around the bay to show people where damns and other structures would need to be built to keep the waters out.  The idea of rising seas is a total bore for most folks, a 1.4 meter rise in the bay just does not seem to be a big deal, even though it is in fact a cataclysmic proposition.  Raydike could help inspire people to do something about the problem now, instead of dumping it on our children.

If we do not address our contributions to global warming now, we will eventually need something like the BayArc Tidal Barrier or the Folding Water levee system.  I acknowledge the engineering thinking behind these systems, but if we get to the point where these must be built, we are really fucked.  Action has to be taken immediately, in every household, to reduce energy consumption, reduce emissions, and live sustainably, or our future will be giant barriers spread out across the bay.  Is that what you want?

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Sustainable green pipe now available in California

by schmidt on June 29, 2009 · 3 comments

in Water & Water Conservation

Here’s a product 411 from one of our readers, Gibran Farrah, of Sustainable Building Products.

“After being engineered in Germany and used throughout Europe for over 30 years, a completely sustainable plastic piping system for potable water use has finally hit California.

Made from recycled material, using less than 1/3 of the energy to produce and completely non-toxic, polypropylene piping systems is the most environmentally friendly pipe in the world.

Made in Germany by Aquatherm, polypipe is nothing new to the plumbing industry; what makes Aquatherm innovative is how it has engineered its polypropylene piping with glass.  The fiberglass composite layer embedded in the pipe reduces linear expansion by 75% while adding structural integrity and insulation.

Cheaper than metal pipes and stronger than CPVC or PEX are only some of the environmental benefits to using Polypropylene with glass over conventional piping systems.  Aquatherm is approved by Greenpeace and applies to 9 different LEED categories and is listed by UPC, UMC, NSF and IAPMO.”

If you would like to learn more about polyproylene pipe and how to incorporate this system in your green building design, feel free to contact the manufacturers Bay Area rep:

Gibran Farrah

Sustainable Building Products

Gibran@sustainableBP.com

415.826.2463

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Swimming Pools and Fireplaces

by schmidt on June 8, 2009 · 0 comments

in Miscellaneous Schmidt,Sustainable Living,Water & Water Conservation

I was reading the paper the other day about home pools, a household icon of the 50’s that still plagues neighborhoods today.  Don’t get me wrong, I like to swim, and lounging by the pool, partaking in the occasional ogle, isn’t the worst way to spend a hot afternoon.  No, I am talking more about the home pool, the chemical filled holes in the backyard that are used not nearly as much as people thought they might, like a nice pair of Manolo shoes or an Armani suit.

There are 958,000 public and private pools in the state of California.  If a tiny pool uses 30,000 gallons to fill, that is at least 285,000,000,000 gallons of water at any given moment, and that is a low number since many many pools are bigger than thirty thousand gallons.  How many millions of gallons of chemicals to keep that water “clean”?  How many of those pools are left to fester and become breeding grounds for mosquitoes?  Now in some places, where it is oppressively hot I can see why you might want one – but wanting isn’t a good enough reason when talking about sustainable living.  The environmental costs for private pools are huge.  Pools no longer add to a home’s value like they may have 30 + years ago.  With so many other options, like beautiful new public pools, the home pool just doesn’t make sense for sustainable builders.  How do you justify the costs in terms of water use and pollution?  I just do not see it.

And on to fireplaces.  Another fixture of the modern home, who doesn’t love a nice fireplace?  Well, me for one.  Honestly, ask yourself when was the last time you actually used the thing?  I think people like the idea of a fireplace far more than the actual fireplace itself.  Maybe its the primal nature of the thing, maybe it reminds us of some distant past when we needed a fireplace to cook and keep us warm, maybe its nostalgia…

But hey, it is an item whose time has past.  Given the efficiencies available in modern HVAC systems, coupled with the really excellent insulation options now available, fireplaces are just very last century.  I am not going to even go down the whole “Burning things is bad” argument – rather I am going to just talk about the space itself.  If you are doing a remodel, ask yourself if you need that space?  Oftentimes the fireplace dictates how a room flows, restricts how you arrange your furniture, how you use a room, and for what?  The one or two times a year you might take a match to the palace, if even that much?  I find fireplaces to be a waste of space.  They unbalance a living room, dictate focal points that don’t need to be there and limit your flexibility, all of which runs counterproductive to the most efficient use of a space, which is one of the keys to sustainable living.  So if your doing a remodel, here is a radical idea, ask yourself if you really need a fireplace, does it really add value to the home, or are you better off without it?  The planet is, of that I am certain.

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Memorial Day

by schmidt on May 26, 2009 · 0 comments

in Miscellaneous Schmidt,Water & Water Conservation

Memorial Day (AKA Veteran’s Day) doesn’t get enough press imho.  Considering how much has been sacrificed by so many for our country and our future, too much time is spent on BBQ’s and shopping sprees at the local big box and not enough time spent on serious reflection.  We have waged so many wars in the few hundred years of our existence as a nation, some by choice, others without choice, yet in each the dead pile up and watch the living move on.

Global climate change is no war, but the threat it poses us as a nation and as a species is fundamental, intrinsic, and may well lead to our extinction.  How do we serve those who have sacrificed their lives by pissing away the very world they fought for?  Over consumption, poor urban planning, unsustainable pressures on our environment and resources will eventually overwhelm us, unchecked their will be no one to tend our graves as we tended the graves of our fallen soldiers this past weekend.

Hyperbole?

Maybe, but I am in a hyperbolic mood after watching flag draped coffins and considering what it means to be an American.  If carbon levels continue their unchecked rise, as they have risen year after year since measurement began in the 1950’s, there won’t even be wood left for our coffins, nor people left to memorialize us.  Will future remnants of our generation look back and curse our greed and insatiable consumption?  I think it is likely.

Unless…

You & I get off our lazy asses and get to work.  No day goes by my eyes that I am not presented with choices to make the future better.  To use less, to purchase smartly, to build sustainably.  Every act of creation contains some seeds of destruction, and the creaton of our homes needs to recognize this and ask how that destruction can be minimized in each and every step of the way.  I saw some friends of mine with a jack hammer just this morning going to work on a cracked driveway, and I asked them to use high concentration flyash concrete.  It can be as easy as that.

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My water bill

by schmidt on May 20, 2009 · 0 comments

in Water & Water Conservation

I have been meaning to talk about my water bill for some time now – and since my bill just arrived a bit ago now is as good a time as any.  This period my bill from the SFPUC is $208.10.  My family of 4 and our turtle used an average of 271 GPD (gallons per day – 15,000 gallons this last billing cycle) well under the 130 GPD per person/520 GPD per family average for CA.  And the house I am currently in isn’t all that special, the toilets are standard 1.6 gallons per flush (GPF)  models, the washing machine is a regular top loader, and I do have a lawn, though it is a tiny 6 X 12 foot postage stamp.

I like my water service , its some of the best in the world.  But to give the costs some perspective, your average business/farm pays about $10 – $100 per acre foot of water.  An acre foot is the standard unit for measuring water volume, and it equals about 325,000 gallons.  So where that business pays a hundred bucks per acre foot, my family  pays 325,000 divided by 15,000 times $208.10 = $4,474.15 per acre foot.

$4,474.15!

Wow.  Seems like BS to me, especially when I hear farmers in the central valley who grow things like cotton in the desert complain about water rates – here is a tip, grow something less water intensive.  I know I can do more to conserve water and money, and I am curious what my famiy’s water use will be as we are soon to move into the redesigned house on 39th ave that features many advanced water saving features.  But another obvious opportunity for savings as well as revenue for the state in these tough economic times is aggricultural water use.  Farmers need to pay more for our water.  If we tripple their rates you and I the residential customer are still getting screwed.  Its time everyone does their part.

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