24 Mar Water Wise Update!

Water is a scare resource that should be managed very carefully and thoughtfully. I met with a local sustainable water management activist today, named David Venhuizen, who had a lot to say about how Austin should manage it's water. Water should be treated as a resource instead of a waste, which is how it's currently being treated in our infrastructure.  You can help change this method of 'water treatment' (ha, get it?) by going to the Water Shed Protection Ordinance Stakeholder meetings. The upcoming meeting is this April 4th from 11am-1pm at City Hall in the Bullpen. Make your voice heard to change the policies for storm water in the Austin area.

You can also add water catchment and rain gardens to your house if you want to take immediate water conservatory action. I outlined simple and affordable ways to do this in my previous post. If you really want to make the most out of nature's most important resource you can actually use your water two times on your property by running rain water through your home and then letting it out onto the landscape as grey water. That means you can use the same water to brush your teeth and water your garden! No amount of water energy is lost this way. Brad Lancaster is a tremendous knowledge resource on all of these topics. Currently policies for this type of sustainable resource usage is kind of a 'grey' area in city policy. I highly recommend checking with city ordinances and working with code makers to make sure you are in line with current policies and to help new policies become more fluid and adapted to sustainable design systems.

I implore you to let others know about these coming changes in the city infrastructure and to take action yourself to make sure they are a reality, for the sake of our local ecosystem. If we can wrangle our government to accept and promote these policies we can also be a state and national example as a leader in proper water management and thoughtful sustainable design.