'Greywater' helps East Bay residents cope with parched landscape

While almost everyone in California is talking about the drought, East Bay residents are doing something about it.

Sustainable Contra Costa co-founder and President Tina Neuhausel is using her Walnut Creek home as a proving ground for energy- and water-conservation. Clayton homeowner Linda Cruz recently installed a greywater system. And Oakland-based Greywater Action is leading workshops, presentations and community forums on sustainable water-use practices throughout Contra Costa and Alameda counties.

Greywater systems capture household water from sinks, washing machines, showers and baths and redirect the resource to irrigate ornamental plants and fruit trees instead of discharging it into storm sewers. Using simple plumbing materials, water that contains no toxic substances (like bleach, sodium, boron or shampoos) can also supply essential nutrients to vegetables, as long as it doesn't touch edible parts of the plants.

Laura Allen, Greywater Action co-founder, noted, "Water conservation and reusing greywater is critical this dry year: we must all find ways to use less water in our homes and communities so that we can live in balance with our water supply and restore and protect our natural water ecosystems."

Now living in Southern California, but still active in the East Bay organization, Allen has conducted a study of 83 residential greywater systems in the greater Bay Area and is finishing a book about drought-proofing landscapes, with expected publication by Storey Publishing in January.

For the simplest laundry-to-landscape systems, materials are about $200. Depending on how much digging a homeowner is willing to do to prepare mulch basins and trenches for burying pipes, labor for installation of low-tech systems is less than $500.

Or, it's entirely free, as it was for Cruz. The 34-year resident agreed to have her home be the site of a Sustainable Contra Costa workshop operated by GWA, after another home presented cement deck problems.

"I was signed up for the workshop, and they asked if we'd do it," Cruz recalls.

"My husband ... was impressed that there were people who really want to learn. We had people from Sacramento, Half Moon Bay, Salinas -- all over Northern California."

Cruz says she recycled household water during droughts in the '70s and '80s, but back then it was through a hose her husband hooked up to to the washing machine.

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'Greywater' helps East Bay residents cope with parched landscape