We ended up with a decent crop this year – about 20 cobs off the back-yard plot and 10 from the front – although this wasn’t without some trials… Water of course makes the difference and our laundry graywater was essential this season. A previous year, when we had our daily bath and shower water redirected to the corn, it was enormous!
The folks involved with the Sustainable Living Foundation hold an annual Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne, Australia, aims to inspire and empower everyday Australians to accelerate the uptake of sustainable living.
I found the photo above on their website. Apparently, you can grow corn in Australia with graywater. Perhaps, sustainably.
Our regular Daily Post readers are no doubt aware that our Colorado government, and our agricultural industries, and our cities and towns, are currently involved in a heated discussion about global warming and its predicted effects on future water supplies. Of particular concern are the diversions involving the Colorado River.
The Colorado River controversy involves New Mexico, California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, plus our neighbors south of the border in Mexico. These are populations that rely, to a greater or lesser degree, on water from the Colorado River.
More recently acknowledged are various American Indian tribes living in the Southwest, as holders of traditional (and valuable) water rights.
From a May 23 article by Associated Press reporter Susan Montoya Bryan:
The Navajo Nation Council has signed off on a proposed settlement that would ensure water rights for its tribe and two others in the drought-stricken Southwest — a deal that could become the most expensive enacted by Congress.
The Navajo Nation has one of the largest single outstanding claims in the Colorado River basin. Delegates acknowledged the gravity of their vote Thursday and stood to applause after casting a unanimous vote. Many noted that the effort to secure water deliveries for tribal communities has spanned generations…
There are many places in the American Southwest where water infrastructure — dams, canals, pipelines, reservoirs, ditches, diversion structures — have converted what were formerly arid wastelands into productive agricultural areas. That conversion has happened much more slowly, however, on tribal lands in the Southwest.
The Navajo Nation reservation, for example, stretches across 27,000 square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Almost a third of the 170,000 people who live there do not have access to clean, reliable drinking water, the tribe says. Thousands who live without running water must drive for miles to refill barrels and jugs to haul water home for drinking, cooking, bathing and cleaning.
Others rely on unregulated wells.
But let’s not get sidetracked. We were discussing graywater.
We shared a bit of news last Friday, provided by the office of Colorado Representative Marc Catlin, born in Montrose, Colorado, and raised on a farm just west of town, where his family grew crops like sugar beets, Coors Barley, pinto beans, onions, and sweet corn.
Rep. Catlin represents the 58th House District, which includes Delta, Dolores, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Montezuma, Montrose, San Miguel, and Ouray counties. Nearly all the rivers in those counties ultimately flow into the Colorado River.
Farmers in Colorado typically develop an abiding interest in water, and Rep. Catlin committed nearly 20 years at the Uncompahgre Water Users Association, half of that time serving as the manager. He later became the Water Rights Coordinator for Montrose County.
He’s currently serving his fourth term in Colorado’s House of Representatives, but now campaigning for a seat in the Colorado Senate. From his campaign website:
Marc Catlin’s dedication to understanding Colorado’s and the western United States’ most vital resource has distinguished him as Colorado’s State Legislature’s water issues expert.
On Wednesday, May 29, 2024, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed into law House Bill 24-1362, the bi-partisan ‘Measure to Incentivize Graywater Use’ bill. The bill’s prime sponsors in the House were Marc Catlin (R-Montrose County) and Meghan Lukens (D-Routt County).
From the press release we shared on Friday:
This law authorizes the installation of graywater treatment works in new construction projects. Graywater systems recycle in-home water from laundry, shower, bath, or sinks. Though below drinkable standards, this graywater can be reused for toilets and watering lawns. The bill passed the legislature with unanimous approval. The bill was signed into law at Colorado Mountain College in Steamboat Springs.
Representative Catlin says, “Newer and newer technologies are becoming available to the market. The state of Colorado needs to look at these technologies to help people conserve water in their daily lives. People in Colorado are cognizant of the realities of water in the west and they want to do their part. It is time that the state of Colorado steps up to allow and even incentive our residents to help conserve water.”
I believe Rep. Catlin meant “incentivize”, the verb form of noun “incentive”.
I’m personally interested in this topic, for several reasons. I began researching and writing about water issues in 2008 and 2009, when Pagosa Area Water and Sanitation District (PAWSD) was proposing a $357 million reservoir project in the Dry Gulch valley, just north of downtown Pagosa Springs. That proposal was supported by engineering studies that claimed our community would be seriously short of drinking water by 2020.
Those claims have since been shown to be preposterous. Despite media reports declaring unprecedented drought in the American Southwest, our community is not even close to running out of water.
On a more personal level, the cost of centralized water services — municipal drinking water and sewer treatment — has increased significantly during my 30 years in Pagosa. But many areas of our community are still lacking municipal drinking water and sewer services — services that people in most American cities take for granted.
Can the the new law promoted by Representatives Catlin and Lukens, and now signed by Governor Polis, be a game changer for Colorado?
Seriously?
Let’s consider that.
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.