Permaculture and the Three Epochs Curriculum: Water Continued

Posted on | July 29, 2010 | No Comments

I am on my way up to Madison, WI for a course and I realize that I haven’t posted any more of the Three Epochs outline over the past few weeks. Life has taken me in so many directions lately as this Permaculture idea begins to permeate the world profoundly. Let’s keep the ball rolling!

Waste water:

Biological cleaning systems incorporating plants that grow with their roots in water, anaerobic root systems can be designed to clean up all our polluted waste water we need create. Gravel reed bed systems where algae attached to the gravel assist in the cleaning process, aquatic plant pond filters, floating aquatic plant garden filters, water snails and compost worm farm filters can all be incorporated. Discharge water can go onto non-food forest, nut crop, essential oils and bamboos. Biologically cleaned gray water can be piped to mulched gardens or by root level drains below paths in food gardens.

In cold frosty climates these biological waste water cleaning need to be cover with a glass house to function in winter. All these biological cleaning systems create surplus high carbon material, which needs to be harvested and processed into humus through a decomposition cycle. It is in this surplus high carbon material that the toxins are trapped, and during the next stage, the decomposition cycle they become bonded to the carbon molecules and inert. Carbon is the life element, which can soak up our waste toxins and plants are a direct creative carbon pathway from the Sun and it’s free energy.

Water is the great global solvent, carrier of nutrient or toxin, creator of life or main erosion element of systems.

Designer’s Checklist: On any property, identify sources of water, analyze for quality and quantity, and reserve sites for tanks, swales, or dams. Wherever possible, use slope benefits (or raise tanks) to give gravity flow to use points, and detail plant lists that will grow (as mature plants or trees un-irrigated). (See page 181 of Designer’s Manual).

References:
-Alexandersson, Olaf, Living Water, Turnstone Press, Northhamptonshire, England, 1982.
-Alth, Max, Wells and Septic Tanks, Tab Books, NYC, 1992.
-Banks, Suzy, Heinichen, Richard, Rainwater Collection for the Mechanically Challenged, Tank Town Publications, Dripping Springs, TX, 1997.
-Campbell, Stu, Home Water Supply, Storey Books, North Adams, MA, 1983.
-Coates, Callum, Living Energies, Gateway Books, Bath UK, 1996.
-Hazeltine, Barnett and Bull, Christopher, Field Guide to Appropriate Technology, Academic Press,
NYC, 2003.
-Kinkade-Levario, Heather, Design for Water, New Society Publishers, BC, Canada, 2007.
-Ludwig, Art, Water Storage, Oasis Design, Santa Barbara, Ca, 2005.
-Matson, Tim, Earth Ponds Sourcebook, Countryman Press, Woodstock, Vermont, 1997.
-Mollison, Bill, Introduction to Permaculture, Tagari Publications, Tyalgum Australia, 1991.
-Mollison, Bill, Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, Tagari Publications, Tyalgum Australia, 1988.
-Wetlands: Audobon Society Nature Guide, Alfred A. Knopf, NYC, 1985.
-Yeomans, P.A, Water for Every Farm, Second Back Row Press, Leura, NSW, Australia, 1981.

Comments