Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

daamsie t1_j5te3sa wrote

Interesting you refer to rain water as gray water in the US.

For me (and I think generally anyone in Australia) that word is reserved for recycled water, eg from shower, sink etc.

Rain water can easily be used as drinking water provided you have clean gutters, roof, etc and a little bit of treatment.

Rain tanks are incredibly common here and, unless you aren't on town water, are generally used for the garden more than anything else.

California's drought is interesting to watch from afar. It's all the same things we were dealing with 15/20 years ago here in our drought years. A good impetus for change if nothing else. And hopefully some innovation comes out of it.

26

AncientBelgareth t1_j5tqlkh wrote

Many places in the US it is illegal to collect rain water.

Edit: My statement above is false

12

canastrophee t1_j5u3yqe wrote

A lot of the fucked up water practices in the American West are because of legacy frontier water rights. Oregon doesn't allow collection of rainwater because of concern that it would fuck up how the watershed shakes out. Iirc, in California's Central Valley, where a staggering amount of produce is grown, water rights are attached to the land and are first come, first served -- the oldest parcel of land waters their shit, and then the second oldest, and so on until everything runs out.

I do recall correctly that in multiple years over the last 2 decades, landowners have made more money selling their water than they would have using that water to farm their land, and that without this legacy system, almonds would be such a water-expensive crop that they wouldn't be profitable. So. You know. Something something market value California almonds!

6

thetomahawk42 t1_j5vuh50 wrote

Drinking water is treated to be clean and potable.

Everything else is grey water.

1

daamsie t1_j5vvbd6 wrote

Maybe in North America that is the definition. Here we make a distinction between rainwater and grey water.

Rainwater needs no treatment to be used on the garden.

Grey water does.

That's why we don't refer to rainwater as grey water

1