Fieldtrip: Water Conservation Project Tour
This fascinating and eye-opening tour will visit sites around SLO that conserve water or re-use greywater. The projects goals are to increase community water conservation, lessen water use, and improve the Steelhead habitat in the Morro Bay Watershed. The field trip will depart from the SLO Vet’s Hall on Friday, October 14th at 2 p.m.
Meredith Hardy (a Fish Habitat Specialist for the California Conservation Corps) will be presenting along with Wendy Laumer (an Americorps Watershed Steward), Regina Hirsch (co-owner of Mountain Sage Landscapes), and Anna Halligan (a restoration ecologist at the Morro Bay National Estuary Program).
As water is becoming a scarce resource in California, catching rainwater in tanks during the winter rainy season makes sense. It is then used during the dry summer months. The two rainwater harvesting projects on the tour demonstrate rainfall capture off rooftops and storage in water tanks. One collection project waters a native plant propagation nursery. The other is used for hydrating cattle and for a private home.
A commercial project will show how greywater (wastewater from baths, showers, and washers) is diverted from a residential laundry facility to irrigate around 10,000 square feet of land. Our tour guides will show us how these larger projects can be scaled down for use on single-family residences.
