Jill Stites shows off a cistern that collects water from the roof of a welcome center for the Lake County Forest Preserve District of Illinois. An underground cistern collects water for fire protection and, come summer, toilets.(Photo courtesy of Shawn Allee)
Sometimes we hear complaints that environmental regulations stop us from doing what we want with our property.
Environmentalists say there’s one issue where doing the green thing can attract a bunch of red tape.
Shawn Allee reports it’s about using rain water to flush our toilets.
Transcript
Sometimes we hear complaints that environmental regulations stop us from doing what we want with our property.
Environmentalists say there’s one issue where doing the green thing can attract a bunch of red tape.
Shawn Allee reports it’s about using rain water to flush our toilets.
This story starts at a forest preserve in Lake County, Illinois, north of Chicago.
Jill Stites is here to show off the forest preserve’s custom-built welcome center.
Stites: This building was built for people to come out and see what people could do in their own homes.
In other words, the idea was, we could do it, it didn’t break the bank entirely, here’s something you might want to try, that sort of thing?
Stites: yes, you can really do green building in a responsible way.
Stites shows me how the building collects rain water from the roof.
That keeps rain out of sewers.
That way, the local waste-water treatment plant doesn’t waste chemicals and electricity to purify rainwater.
After all, rainwater’s already clean and you can store it in cisterns, like this one.
Stites: It collects water off of the roof and goes directly in there. and there’s a spout on the bottom of the cistern that you can hook up a hose to and water your flowers with.
But Stites’ building wanted bigger bragging rights.
They wanted to prove people can collect rain water for more than just flowers.
You can use it for something more urgent: flushing your toilet.
Stites: you don’t need drinking water to flush your toilet. you’re saving the water from going to the storm sewers to be treated to come back as drinking water when that’s not necessary.
There was trouble, though.
The forest preserve district couldn’t get a permit to use rain water in the toilets.
It wanted a connection to city water, as a kind of backup.
But the state worried untreated rain water might somehow contaminate the city’s drinking water.
It took years to get special permission.
Stites: We’re bragging about it. It’s been in the paper about the possibility of it happening and we’re hoping by summer that it’s going to be a fact.
Well, the Lake County Forest Preserve District got its permit, but it won’t let the issue die.
It wants average homeowners to have an easier time, so do environmental groups.
Ellis: It’s a time-consuming process. If we’re going to have more individuals and business doing this, it’s just going to become a bureacratice mess if they have to get variances every time.
This is Josh Ellis.
He’s with the Metropolitan Planning Council in Chicago.
He wants rain collection for toilets to go mainstream in Illinois, but state law needs an update.
Ellis: It would just be a matter of course instead of a special process just to run your toilets a little bit differently.
He says engineers and plumbers have proven rain water collection can work for toilets, safely.
Ellis: We just need to upgrade the plumbing code and I think it will be smooth sailing from there.
Maybe smooth sailing … if you have the cash.
I ask an industry leader for specifics.
His name’s Joe Wheeler, and he’s with the American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association.
The U-S Environmental Protection Agency estimates, each year the average household spends just 200 dollars on water.
Wheeler says, for a rain water collection system …
Wheeler: You could do a really good job for about 4500 to 15,000 dollars. Every house is different. We’re not talking McDonald’s Big Macs here, we’re talking every one of them is a unique situation.
Wheeler says overseas, using rainwater for toilets is common and cheap.
Take Germany, for example.
Wheeler: Basically when you go into a home, you don’t know … you can’t tell the difference.
But Wheeler says German homes and businesses get pushed toward rain harvesting.
Wheeler: People would actually get a rebate on their waste water and that gave the whole market in Germany a critical mass.
It doesn’t work like that here, so in the U-S, rain harvesting for toilets is nowhere near critical mass.
For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.