Last Thursday in my local newspaper The Chico Enterprise-Record there was an editorial about saving water through bureaucracy: Editorial: Toilet police don’t want job. It was was of those “only in California” type things about a new law with good intentions, but eye rolling implementation that only policy wonks could dream up.
I agreed with the complaint about bureaucracy part, but the editorial came off as saying water use and water conservation wasn’t all that important an issue, and that gave me cause to introduce the PDO to local readers as well as something I learned about toilets in Australia when I visited there, adopting for my home and office, and wrote about in A green product worth recommending. Here’s my letter to the editor, where I crammed as much into the 250 word limit as I could, and following that, the reaction from the editor.
Chico Enterprise-Record Posted: 01/11/2014 09:52:52 PM PST
I read your Thursday editorial on the “toilet police” with amusement, but also with concern. Saving water is an important issue, especially since the Pacific Decadal Oscillation flipped to cool phase in 2008. We are now seeing effects manifested as cooler, drier, winters, with little rainfall; yes, drought.
Visiting Australia in 2010 (where low rainfall is much like California), I noticed that all toilets were “dual flush” with two buttons; number 1 and number 2. Number 1 uses 50 percent less. Seeing drought coming here, I’ve since retrofitted my home and office toilets to dual flush. It’s easy to do, and under $25 at any home improvement store.
The value to dual flush toilets is not only saving water, but also saving on your water bill. Since California Water Service Company seems hell bent on raising rates to cover pensions (because we’ve used less water, providing lower revenue), here’s your chance for payback by reducing water consumption even more.
Since California greens routinely challenge more reservoirs, and state government planned poorly to meet growth, this next drought will likely be harder than the big one in the 1970s, the last time the Pacific Decadal Oscillation was in cool phase for an extended period. In 1977, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation switched to a warm phase, and the drought eased, but 1985 to 1991 saw another drought.
Here’s your chance to get ahead of the bureaucrats before the “toilet police” come knocking. Meanwhile, pray for El Niño in fall 2014.
— Anthony Watts, Chico
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Here’s the reaction from the editor – he made it his Sunday column.
David Little: Save water without toilet cops
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For those of you that want a dual flush toilet retrofit, here is what they look like.
The kit is pretty simple, and assembles without any need for tools. Pictorial instructions in English and Spanish are provided.
Price? Less than $20, and at that price it will pay for itself in a few months, depending on usage. This system is guaranteed for five years, so I’m pretty sure I’ll not only get my investment back, but a significant return on it. Plus, my kids like it and they were fascinated watching dad replace this thing and now having a pushbutton 1/2 instead of a handle.
Want one? Available here at Amazon Get it, highly recommended.
Update: For those that like the traditional handle rather than the button, see this model.
And finally here’s everything you ever wanted to know about the Pacific Decadal Oscillation: http://wattsupwiththat.com/tag/pacific-decadal-oscillation/
And the WUWT reference page for that and other oceanic oscillations:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/ocean-pages/oceanic-oscillation/
Hopefully, per this ensemble NINO 3.4 SST Anomalies Forecast, we will be out of La Niña soon:
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) – Climate Prediction Center – Click the pic to view at sourceDiscover more from Watts Up With That?
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First, they came for my toilet
Then, they came for my shower head…
FWIW years ago when we had to install 1.6 gal toilets, the dual flush worked by adding a simple hole in the flapper valve. The hole lets out air so that with a short flush it closes after draining only half the tank. To get a full tank flush, just hold down the lever longer. Very simple and effective.
Still, we find often we have to flush twice with the solids, and I use the plunger more often, requiring multiple flushes.
By all means get the model with the traditional handle. Last time I needed to replace the flush mechanism in my toilet I got one of these and they only had the button type, which I really should replace. No more flushing the toilet with your knuckles. You have to push hard with two fingers, and so does everyone else who uses the toilet. Hand washing after using this toilet is not a pro-forma exercise. The thing is a real germ-sharing device.
Amazing how many people say “saving” water. You don’t “save” water but you can use less water. However it is interesting how authorities focus water use on householders. Residential use of water is minor, the major user of water is Industrial and commercial. Why don’t the authorities focus on these groups? The amount of water that residents can use less of is a drop in the ocean.
An interesting news item in Sydney a couple of days ago. Sydney water is losing the equivalent of 28 swimming pools of water PER DAY to leakage in the Sydney water system. So one has to wonder why it is the residents that have to pay and sacrifice?
First: They came for our cars. And I said nothing.
Then: They came for our lightbulbs. And I said nothing.
Next: They came for our property. And I still said nothing.
Finally: They came for my toilet. And then there was no …
I’ll let the reader finish it.
There is no shortage of water. The bulk of the worlds surface is covered by water. The problem is resource management. Here in France we rarely actually drink tap water – we drink bottled water. But we process tap water to be drinkable and actually use it for lesser roles. Plus we take grey water like rain water which is pretty clean and could be used for cloths washing and flushing, and mix it with sewage in the used water drains. Which means when it rains we can not treat the flow and dump undertreated dirt water into the rivers and sea.
Urine can be regarded as a resource as well as a waste product.
A good source of Nitrogen and Phosphorus, ph is neutralish, depending on the time of day and adding this to a compost bin is the way to go.
.It has been trialled in Sweden, however in hot, dry, inland Australia it makes even more sense; just a change in attitude is needed.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2007-07-10/aussie-scientist-calls-for-human-urine-fertiliser/95480
I keep my water bills low by pissing in the sink and running the tap a bit after. Probably use about a pint of water per piss (1 pt/ps).
On common sense waste water system design and maintenance –
I live in the Seattle WA area, where water and sewer charges are not ‘cheap’. When I designed and built my house back in 2001, I installed Toto brand 1.6 gallon per flush toilets. They work quite well, without double flushing, regardless of the volume of waste deposited in the bowl. I made sure both my tub/shower and washing machine drains tapped into the common drain line with the toilets (2 story, daylight basement on the N end, toilets ‘up’ and ‘down’), to mitigate concerns I had about ‘low flow’ movement of waste down the drain pipes to the sewer main pipe at the street.
My kitchen sink has a ‘garbage disposal’ grinder incorporated in the drain pipe, to allow direct disposal of vegetable trimmings. The dish washer also drains to the common drain pipe with the kitchen sinks, contributing food waste from both sources on this line. About twice a year, I fill up both sinks with hot (HOT!) water, then pull their drain plugs out and turn the garbage disposal on. This creates a ‘power flush’ effect to help keep this drain line clear. Also, dropping the occasional lemon or lime rind into the garbage disposal keeps it smelling fresh, as citric acid is antibacterial and the oils in the rind are fragrant.
The drain pipe from the house to the street initiates below the basement floor and extends at a -4% slope for gravity assisted flow to the main sewer line beneath the street. That is not a ‘lot’ of slope, hence my concerns about low flow down the drain pipes and the various mitigations outlined above! As a further protection, just outside of the house foundation I included a one way ‘flap valve’ in the system outflow pipe and a ‘clean out’ access pipe up to the surface, to protect my house from sewage back flow should the pipe to the street or the municipal sewer main ever get plugged up.
Given all of that, I have not had any issues with the toilets or drains to date. Perhaps my design and maintenance efforts were not wasted…
No clogs, no ‘plungers’, no plumbers – No Worries Mates!
Mac
crosspatch says:
January 12, 2014 at 11:49 am
But here is the primary problem: Since we have settled California the state has been experiencing unusually wet conditions. This has possibly been the wettest 500 years in the last 10,000. What we consider “normal” is actually quite unusually wet. We have, in the last 1000 years, had periods of over 200 years of very dry conditions. Some sierra lakes have nearly completely dried up. There are trees rooted 150 feet deep in some lakes that are over 100 feet tall and have been carbon dated to the 13th century.
It is quite possible for us to have periods centuries long of maybe half the average annual precipitation we are now getting. What we would call “megadrought” in California lasting for a century or more is actually quite normal.
crosspatch,
Good comment – can you provide some ‘links’ for reference?
Mac
Wander out into the garden and water the lawn. The plants will thank you for the nitrates. The wastewater plant will thank you for the lowered nitrate loading. Admittedly this doesn’t work for the female of the species. You also need a private section not overlooked by the neighbours.
@ur momisugly ozspeaksup. good on yer mate!
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Yes, I know it all goes to the same place, but where do you brush your teeth? 😎
I have been begging my community to build an Anaerobic Bio-Digester waste disposal facility. At the moment, we dispose of bulk sewage througha community septic system drain field and by field spreading raw sewage on designated hayfields.
The state has realized that our Karst or karst-like geology allows large farm manure pit tanks to drain quite directly to groundwater and Lake Michigan, and they are eagerly regulating the farmers. It is just a matter of time until they regulate septic drain fields out of existence. At the moment, the majority of our local public wells are unusable for high coliform counts.
Depending on the AD technology chosen, mesophilic or thermophilic, an AD can provide fuel gas or soil enhancing ‘fertilizer’, a la Milwaukee’s Milorganite.
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If it’s dark enough it should work for both.
But wastewater plants DO need water. The more concentrated the influenent, the more challenges to treat it.
Here is a solution that will cost you nothing!
Video Titled, “Pissin Outside”
cynical_scientist says: “January 12, 2014 at 1:48 pm “Wander out into the garden and water the lawn. [ … ]” Evidently you are not a long distance bicyclist, even a female long distance bicyclist. All I need, if I have time, is a three minute gap in the passing traffic to be discreet, if they won’t give me that then I just turn my back to their obliviousness. Racing? Let it fly! Rain is a good cover for the distaff that hold on to a signpost and smile.
Whoa Anthony!
As an Australian who lives in and has farmed in south eastern Australia for most of my 75 years this is where we seriously part ways;
To quote;
“Hopefully, per this ensemble NINO 3.4 SST Anomalies Forecast, we will be out of La Niña soon”
La Nina for us here in eastern Australia generally means wet seasons.
El Nino’s are generally much drier here and if a strong El Nino also coincides with positive phase of the quasi annual Indian Ocean Dipole [ IOD ] then here in SE Australia we are staring at a full scale drought during our main winter / spring rainfall periods
So to us a La Nina with its better and sometimes significant increases in winter and spring rainfall here in SE Australia is always good news.
As a retired farmer I don’t wish bad seasons and droughts on anybody as I have seen and farmed through far to many droughts and bad times over my own farming lifetime to want to see other farmers and other folk suffer through the same situation.
But I am also selfish enough to admit that I would far prefer to have good seasons here on my patch even if somebody somewhere else doesn’t do as well because of the same climate phase seasonal set
As you say California is like Australia, particularly eastern Australia in that it’s climate and rainfall are very much at the mercy of the great Pacific climate and ocean cycles such as the ENSO and the PDO plus a few other long term cycles that not a great deal is known about as yet.
Here in the western third of the SE Australian state of Victoria I can almost draw a north / south line across the western third of the state where the influences of a run of the mill ENSO [ La Nina / El Nino ] event coming out of the SW Pacific runs out of puff and changes into a situation where the current phase of the quasi annual Indian Ocean Diplole [ IOD ] to the NW of Australia really starts to have a serious effect on the local winter and spring rainfall. patterns in the SE and south central regions of Australia.
They never bother to ask us old guys about the weather of the past as asking old timers for their impressions of past periods of climate is now so passe and climate models are far more fashionable and “with it”. But looking back through my farming career and now knowing the timing of the PDO phases and the shifts in the PDO index I can easily identify the phases and the timing of the PDO by the run of the local seasons since my childhood in the early 1940’s.
My parents often use to talk about the heat and dryness of the 1930’s and I can still remember the great dust storms of the early 1940’s the likes of which I have never seen since as both farming practices and the great rabbit plagues that destroyed and ate anything that grew were finally brought under control,
The rabbits during the plagues of the early to mid 1900’s even killed quite large trees by burrowing around their roots and eating the bark off the roots to get at the moisture inside.
Then in the late 1940’s the seasons turned much cooler and wetter and remained so right through the 50’s with a brief interlude in the mid 1960’s where we had a couple of decent droughts and the PDO index went positive for a short period and then back to a negative index number and a further period of the cool and the extremely wet early to mid 1970’s.
By the early 1980’s following the Great Pacific Climate Shift of 1977/ 78 we started to run into an increasing number of dry to very dry years cumulating in the late 1990’s and the first half of the 2000 “noughties” with a whole run of severe droughts which were amongst the driest sustained periods recorded in Australia’s short 200 year history of white settlement.
This of course was also the hey day of climate model predictions and we farmers were categorically assured by the CSIRO climate modellers that the drought conditions here in eastern Australia and across the inland eastern Australian grain belt were here to stay and would get worse, much worse due entirely and only to Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming as it was known as in those days.
As a farmer it was probably one of the most morale destroying and confidence destroying seminars I have ever attended and the start of my disillusionment with and contempt for climate catastrophe advocates and arrogant climate modellers in general and my disillusionment with the impartiality and declining scientific capabilities and honesty of the CSIRO in general and it’s climate division in particular.
All followed of course a couple of years later by the greatest amount of rainfall ever recorded over some very large areas of the eastern half of Australia particularly in those areas designated by the CSIRO modellers to continue to experience an increasing number of droughts and increasingly drier conditions and increasing desertification.
Now following the change of the PDO back to it’s negative phase by about 2006 we are starting to experience much cooler summer temperatures here in the SE of Australia and better winter and spring rainfall.
[ it’s forecast to get to about 44C [ 111 F ] for the next few days as I write this due to the intense heat build up in the Centralian desert regions that is finally wending it’s way south and east ]
As an old glider pilot with some 3000 hours and fifty three years of flying behind me, my flying experiences of gliding conditions and weather closely parallel my farming experiences over the same time frames.
So Anthony without wishing any harm to you or your fellow Californians and despite your hopes for seeing some El Nino’s, as an Australian I will be most happy if we continue to see a whole set of La Nina’s continuing to develop in the Pacific over the next few decades.
Not putting anything different in mine – the system backs up if it doesn’t get enough water – end of story – no pun intended.
My solution for low flow toilets that won’t flush is a 5 gallon pail. I suppose they’ll confiscate those next….
I predict the opposite of the model ensemble, a sharp La Nina fall in Nina 3.4 temps in 2014.
I only use a quart to flush may marine head on my boat, but for land, I would have a pressure assisted flushmate toilet, especially in this drought in California.
1.6, 1.28, and 1.0 Gallon Pressure Assist Toilet Operating System
http://www.flushmate.com/
I have to agree with Dodgy Geezer… “saving water” is myth. Mind you, cleaning up dirty water is a pain; but we DO have a handle on that technology. And note, that for every action there is an unintended consequence.
While visiting my German grand-son last year I learned that the state of Hamburg (city-state) is using more water to flush its sewers than it “saves” with its lo-flow toilette mandate… the sewers are old, with grades (slopes) figured for the old “hi-flow” toilets… No problem with new construction and new sewers… but it appears to me that most of Hamburg (and its sewer system) is older than the U.S.
The older parts of Kaiserslautern have the same problem.
And note that Germany STILL doesn’t have a viable way to dispose of mercury laden curley-bulbs. They’re just storing them in the hope that someone will come up viable way to re-cycle them.
At least, this is how things have been explained to me by family and friends.
If you already have a low volume toilet putting in the two button system will cause larger problems. We have sewer systems that are not seeing enough water volume to move the contents along. Some city and town sewer systems are clogging up big time. Also, the waterless urinals are creating massive corrosion problems, not to mention the horrible smell these systems provide to the user—they are truly disgusting.
Only in regions with water supply problems should any measures be taken to decrease toilet volume. It is up the the user how large we make our water bill, barring artificial increases due to greedy unions. If you live in a region with plenty of water and have a low volume toilet anyhow, it might be useful to flush for No. 1 and 2 and any other number to make sure the contents move along. “Remember to flush twice, it’s a long way to the kitchen.” The water bill might be a little higher but the plumbing bill and local tax bill will be much higher.
Chico, and California, could be getting more rain soon…
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/oper/global_anomaly_oper0.png
I have been watching this ocean hotspot move across the Pacific from Japan to the U.S. coast ever since Fukishima – 140W, 40N. The warm water may translate into rain.
Bobby Davis says: January 12, 2014 at 4:44 am
I had a new ADA toilet installed last year & it had the dual flush already installed Anthony. Lift up the handle for 1 & push down for 2. Great idea & it still works great. By the way it’s a Jacuzzi brand toilet.
So it’s not only dual flush, it’s dual purpose.