Field Trip: Learning About Water Conservation

So Thursday we headed out for a tour of Integrated Water Strategies, a water recycling plant based in Apex, N.C. Now, if you aren't familiar with what exactly that means, there could be a lot of scenarios running through your head. Do they catch rainwater and purify it for drinking? Do they use rainwater for irrigation? Is rainwater even involved? Or is there something entirely different?

It's pretty much something entirely different. A bit of trivia to help guide your answer: While 30% of the average home's daily water usage goes towards the use of the toilets, that number jumps to 60-70% for commercial buildings! Crazy, right? Here's where Integrated Water Strategies comes in. What Dr. Hal House, PhD, and the good people of IWS do is recycle waste water from the plumbing systems (yes, toilets), send it on a

10-day journey through a system of gardens made up of raised planter beds, constructed wetlands, with a last stop through a greenhouse. This process purifies the water enough to reuse it for the toilet system and the irrigation of their landscape. Dr. House referred to their own garden setup as "community strategy" with ornamental grasses and other ground plants, small shrubs, and various trees (some growing taller than the roof of the building). Housing all kinds of little creatures from toads and lizards to yellow warblers, their garden system for the filtration of water is its own natural ecosystem!


Here is a very basic run-down of the process. A below-ground septic tank collects the waste water, which then feeds the water up into the soil. The garden soil sucks up the nutrients from the waste water to feed the plants. The microbes on the plant roots push the pollutants through the leaves to eventually release back into the atmosphere. One of the most interesting things to me was that the land on which IWS sits had proven to be a money pit for the previous landowners/prospective developers. The soil is simply not suitable to do much of anything with, and it had a chronic problem of not being able to perk, and thus could not manage waste disposal. The building sat largely untouched for many years and was practically overrun by creeping plants and vines when Dr. House entered the picture in 1996. After the overhaul cleanup of the building itself and the implementation of their waste water management and recycling system, Dr. House was able to turn a nearly worthless chunk of land into a very valuable piece of property (think: tripling its value).

Recycled water 5 days into the process.

Dr. House said something towards the end of our visit that really grabbed my attention. He made the comment that in the future water will essentially hold the same value as oil, as these are both a nonrenewable natural resource. Only 2.5% of the water on the planet is freshwater, and only about 1% of that is accessible (the rest is locked up in frozen ice caps or soil). Fresh drinking water is not something we can ever make more of; we can only find new, innovative ways to conserve and purify it. Something to consider the next time you brush your teeth with the water running...

So the next time you are trying to come up with a creative way to conserve and reuse water, consider contacting Dr. Hal House, PhD, at Integrated Water Strategies. He lives for the chance to come up with these creative solutions, and, to be perfectly honest, he's one of the most interesting people I've come across! You'll feel like you've known him forever and will find yourself fixated on everything he says.

Fun Fact and Something to Ponder: The top 2 emerging contaminants (chemicals in very small concentrations) found in our water are artificial sweeteners and caffeine. If these two are the most present, imagine what else has managed to make its way into our water...

Ways You Can Help: The water filtration system at IWS was designed for 60 people. Unfortunately the number of people working in the building is nowhere near that number, so the system is severely lacking the nutrients that the garden requires. So if you ever find yourself traveling down Farrington Road in Apex and looking for a good place to make a pit stop...the facilities are probably a lot cleaner than those at a gas station.

I'm just sayin'.