The City of Atlanta will dip its toes into a potentially controversial issue late Thursday as the Council’s City Utilities Committee holds a public hearing on permitting rainwater harvesting systems designed to provide water inside the home.
The move would give the city a tool to reduce the amount of water residents use, while it would provide builders and renovators with another green feature to offer homeowners concerned about sustainability
A proposed ordinance developed by advocates and city officials seeks to establish fees on “potable rainwater catchment systems for residential use.” In other words, it wouldn’t apply to the barrels and tanks that many homeowners have installed over the last decade to supply water for their gardens and lawns. Those systems would remain free from fees and regulation.
Cobb County Water System's Earnest Earn, Ecovie's Bob Drew and Jessica Lee Reece, an attorney with Smith Gambrell & Russell spoke at the July 8 Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable on rainwater harvesting. Photo by Ken Edelstein
What the ordinance would do is set up a permitting system to treat rainwater and to use it inside the house. The potentially controversial part regards what happens next: Household water must then be disposed of through the sewers and treated as wastewater, which means there’s a public cost.
In Atlanta, as well as other municipalities in Georgia, potable rainwater systems currently live in a sort of purgatory: They’re not illegal to install, but there’s no permitting system that allows them to be operated.
“There’s nothing saying you can’t do it,” says Bob Drew, the CEO of Ecovie Environmental Inc. and a prime mover behind the proposal. “But the way it stands right now is that if I want to install a system, I need to convince someone that we ought to be allowed to do it.”
Drew is something of an evangelistic for potable rainwater systems. Earlier this month, as a speaker at the Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable, he noted that they’ve become popular in Australia, Germany and other parts of the world facing tight water supplies. And, he argued, widespread acceptance of rainwater systems could provide as much water to the metro area as a major reservoir at much less cost and none of the environmental problems.
Last year, Drew’s company obtained a building permit to install one of its potable systems in an existing Atlanta home, but the city couldn’t figure out how to handle the hookup permit. That prompted Drew and others to work with Mandy Mahoney, who was then the mayor’s sustainability director, and Melinda Langston, in the Department of Wastershed Management, to come up with a solution.
The proposed approach mandates proper treatment and plumbing standards for rainwater if it’s to be used for household purposes, and it protects the city from liability in case the systems aren’t operated correctly. It draws on guidelines already in place in Portland, Oregon, and the state of Texas, but it’s also being heralded as a potential model in its own right.
Potable rainwater treatment system inside the basement of an Atlanta home. Photo courtesy of Bob Drew.
“Other cities … are referring to this Atlanta City Ordinance as a format for the preparation of similar ordinances in areas across the United States,” EPA microbiologist Dennis J. Lye, who helped to develop the proposal, recently wrote to Utilities Committee Chairwoman Natilyn Archibong.
The fee structure that city officials have come up with as part of the plan already has drawn some criticism, however. At that July 8 Sustainable Atlanta Roundtable meeting, one audience member warned advocates that they’d better hope “the Tea Partiers” don’t hear about the proposed fee.
City officials say they’ve attempted to design a fee structure that would ensure lower sewer rates than most other people pay. Sewer fees typically are assessed based on how much city water a property owner uses, according to the water meter — on the theory that “what comes in goes out,” as Drew puts it. Because rainwater can’t be metered, the city has proposed to base sewer fees for potable rainwater systems on the systems’ storage capacity.
Drew admits that he’d rather the city not charge homeowners for sewer service from potable rainwater because the amount money recovered is likely to be small at this point and because those homeowners are investing in something that helps the city with water conservation.
That said he and other advocates say they’re willing to live with the capacity-based system the city has proposed — although Drew is still concerned that under some scenarios homeowners with potable systems could end up paying more for sewage disposal. He expects the fee structure to be the main subject of discussion at tomorrow evening’s meeting.
More about the meeting from an advisory from the city:
Who: Atlanta City Council’s City Utilities Committee; Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, Department of Watershed Management, Bureau of Buildings, Community Members
What: Public Hearing for Guidelines for Rainwater Catchment Systems for Residential Potable Use
When: Thursday, July 21st, 2011 – 6:00p.m.
Where: City Council Chambers (2nd Floor) – 55 Trinity Ave. S.W. – Atlanta, GA 30303
Why: To increase awareness of this leglislation that will have widespread community impact and benefit.
[...] wrote more extensively about this topic yesterday. And today’s AJC ran an article with additional information, [...]
While I agree with the fact the the rain water harvested and used would indeed go into the the City’s waste water system to be processed and therfore the homeowner should be assessed the sewer charges as normal but the water charges should be waived. I on the otherhand have the opposite problem. Im connected to City water but I have a septic tank, that I pay for and maintain. While I have sewer that runs down my street I am not connected. I still get charged for sewer fees despite this! This is part of the City Ordinance that if you have the ability to connect you will pay. I will say, the City gives me a 12% discount for sewer cahrges, that makes me feel like I’m getting screwed just 88% harder than normal.
[...] Atlanta area. But advocates like Bob Drew of Ecovie Environmental argue widespread potable systems could contribute to increasing Atlanta’s water supply more quickly and cost effectively than reservoirs would. Not widespread in the United States, the [...]