I WAS never more excited to do laundry, and it wasn't because my son and I were running out of clean underwear. I had just installed a system to divert gray water from my washing machine to my xeriscaped frontyard, and I was anxious about whether the $312 and two days I'd spent installing it would pay off.
Considering all the money and political squabbling that goes into getting water to this desert metropolis, it seems silly not to recycle water once it's here. Especially now. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are telling us to conserve, which I do. I was still using 253 gallons at my home each day, according to my latest Department of Water and Power bill. I just wanted to use less, and recycling my gray water was one way to do it.
Gray water is the wastewater generated from sinks, showers, bathtubs and laundry machines. All of it could be used to irrigate plants but, instead, is drained to the sewer in Los Angeles County, where it's treated and, for the most part, sent into the Pacific.
In L.A., about 40% of the water used at home is for outdoor irrigation, according to the DWP. The rest is used indoors. In theory, that meant I could get all the water for my landscape from what I was already using inside. I also would be saving money and doing my minuscule part to save the state.
But, like so many other things in life, translating desire into action is often problematic, as I learned while installing a gray water system at my 90-year-old bungalow in Highland Park. Technically, it's possible, but only if the system can clear the exceptionally tall technological, financial and bureaucratic hurdles set out in Appendix G of the California plumbing code, which went into effect in 1992 at the tail end of a five-year drought.
The big issue for the state is public health. Releasing untreated water into a landscape may spread bacteria and make humans and animals sick. That's why the code requires gray water systems to be installed underground.
Although none of the gray water advocates or L.A. County health officials I spoke with for this column are aware of any incidents of gray water-induced sickness, health concerns are the main reason why so few permitted gray water systems exist in the state -- and why most people install them without permits, as I did.
