Appendix G went into effect in 1992 at the tail end of a five-year
drought. Its update was required by Senate Bill 1258, which passed last
summer, requiring the state's Department of Housing and Community Development to
revise the code in an effort "to conserve water by facilitating greater
reuse of graywater in California." While the code's revision is
scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2011, its specific provisions are
currently under intense debate.
Gray water advocates say California's current residential gray water
standard is too restrictive, impractical and expensive and are lobbying
for a standard similar to Arizona's. In Arizona, homeowners are allowed
to install gray water systems without a permit as long as they are
recycling no more than 400 gallons of gray water a day and follow a set
of 13 guidelines. Representatives from California's Department of
Housing and Community Development, however, say they have to come up
with a workable standard that "won't create any type of a long-term
hazard for the whole state," said Jim Rowland, the HCD representative
who is working on the new code. "We're not going to make everybody
happy, but there's a bull's-eye in there somewhere."
According to Rowland, the main issues in the code's revision are the
permitting and design processes. Under the current code, homeowners
must obtain a permit to install a gray water system, and that system
must be designed to meet all the technical requirements set forth in
Appendix G. Rowland said his department is considering a permit
exemption for a certain type of gray water system, i.e. a laundry
machine diversion. His department is also determining if licensed
contractors and governmental inspections should be required with those
systems that would still require permits.
On
the design side, Rowland said "there's a desire to have this be
performance regulated rather than a prescriptive design. Instead of
requiring X number of feet of pipe with X amount of holes for drainage
at X depth, you are required to design the system so it will use all of
the water intended from the fixtures that drain into it on a daily
basis so you don't have standing water."
The primary issue with standing graywater is odor, which makes it a
public nuisance issue. But there are health issues the HCD is also
investigating -- ones that are difficult to fully understand since
little long-term research exists on the subject, Rowland said.
Though gray water proponents say there have been no documented cases
of gray water-involved illness in the United States, Rowland says
there's also no long-term study that's been completed on the subject.
Absent that, he said, "We really don't have anything to point to if
we're challenged" by the state's Building Standards Commission, which
ultimately has to sign off on any code the HCD comes up with.
Meanwhile, as the state's water crisis deepens, the use of unpermitted gray water systems
continues throughout California. Art Ludwig, an ecological designer in
Santa Barbara who has written three books about gray water and has been
giving input to Rowland and the HCD, says only 10 permits for gray
water systems have been issued in Santa Barbara in the last 21 years.
He estimates there are 1.7 million non-permit gray water systems in the
entire state, citing a Graywater Awareness and Usage Study conducted by
the Soap and Detergent Assn., which found that 13.9% of Californians
were using gray water.
In Los Angeles, fewer than 10 residential systems are permitted and
legally installed each year through the Building and Safety Department.
Dick Bennett, of the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Northern
California, says fewer than 10 permits have been issued in his
1.4-million-residence area in the past 15 years.
"I get calls daily from people who want to know about gray water.
They’re collecting it in a bucket, and they want to know about putting
in a more formal system, and I give them the information and I never
hear back," said Bennett, whose agency offers rebates of $250-$500 for
legally installed systems that cost upward of $5,000. "That tells me if
they did go ahead with gray water, they went with an unpermitted system.
"In a water shortage, that’s just where people go," added Bennett.
"They went there in 1976 during the severe water shortage. They went
there from 1988 to 1992, when we had the last serious water shortage.
And they’re going to it again this year."
-- Susan Carpenter
Photo: Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times
