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How You Can Save The Oroville Dam - Harvest Rainwater

2/19/2017

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The Oroville dam has recently garnered a lot of attention, and for a very good reason, thousands of people's lives were put at risk. The stories have focused one what went wrong, how to fix it, who's to blame, etc. - all important! But if we look deeper into the problem in area's like San Diego County where we import the majority of our water and rely on MASSIVE infrastructure projects, similar to the Oroville Dam, we can realize that using rainwater harvesting tools can significantly reduce our dependence on these huge, dangerous, energy consuming systems.

Did you know that approximately 20% of ALL electricity in California is used to move water around the state?

Why do we have these reservoirs? They serve to store water, much of them rainwater, for times when we need the water. They fill during rain and are used to supply water to people when we need the water, often during dryer times of the year or in times of drought.

Why do we use rainwater storage tanks at our homes? Same as the reservoirs, just a much smaller scale, to store rainwater for when we need it. BUT, if millions of people had properly sized  rainwater storage tanks at their homes (California has a population of about 40 million), we could reduce our need to use or even have such large reservoirs.

Nobody wants to put lives at risk, so lets all do our part and get a rainwater harvesting tank. Lets make them the new normal like they have done in Australia during their Mega Drought (click to check out our blog post on that). Not only can we decrease risk to people, we can use local water, decrease flooding and demand of flood control systems AND you don't have to pay for the water, it's free!

Don't forget, even in places that don't get a lot of rain, you can catch an amazing amount of water to meet your needs (click to see our blog post on that).


Custom rainwater storage tank built by Permasystems.
Custom rainwater storage tank built by Permasystems, used to store rainwater for when you need it.

We can store even more rainwater in healthy soil, something we will discuss in a future blog!
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Catching Rainwater for Drinking - Safe And Easy

2/8/2017

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Have you ever tasted rainwater? Maybe stuck your tongue out trying to catch some drops, but probably not a whole glass?

Drinking rainwater is not only safe, but actually safer than the water you get out of your tap. Tap water normally contains chlorine or other chemicals while rainwater is clean (assuming you don't have air quality problems) and even can have a little bit of good minerals in it.

Collecting rainwater for drinking is still illegal in California as it is in many states. However, in Texas it is legal to bring rainwater into your home for potable use.

Rainwater normally has a relatively low Ph, around 5.6, so slightly acidic, but totally safe. Amazingly, storing rainwater in a cement cistern or tank, like ours, brings the Ph up a little bit, to about 7-9, creating the ideal Ph for drinking water!

The most common limiting factor when considering drinking rainwater is the type of roof you have. Asphalt shingle roofs are the most popular type of roof and are the least safe, requiring a significant amount of filtering. Metal, cement and tile roofs are the most safe types and require minimal filtering before drinking. We will talk more about filtering in a future blog post.

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