With drought after drought after drought many people are looking towards ways of conserving water and some are turning to rain water in hopes that can help save and maybe earn them some money.
People are able to earn money by collecting rain water through rebates. The City of Austin offers a rebate of 50 cents on every gallon of non-pressurized storage and 1 dollar on every gallon of pressurized storage up to $5,000 (David Barer). Not only can people earn money they can also help our booming population deal with the water shortages. Personally I have not heard of these rebates, it is a fantastic way to encourage people to look toward other places for water other than the city.
There is also no sales tax on water collection equipment and homeowner associations cannot ban the installations of those systems (David Barer). These measures allow homeowners the opportunity to install these systems. I was very surprised that homeowner associations cannot ban the water collection systems, sometimes it seems that they have unlimited control, this gives people the ability to not have to worry about how their neighbors will feel, they can focus on collecting water.
It seems that these encouragements aren't well known to the public though as the droughts get worse more people will be looking for ways to get water that don't rely on the tap. If these methods of collecting water were advertised along with the tax breaks and rebates more people would be willing to invest in the collection which would help alleviate some of our drought problems before it becomes a major problem.
This is a direct comment to JBaylo's blog titled, "Will Rain Water Save the Day?" Baylo basically talks about the drought problem that Texas has along with a simple solution that could possibly help stabilize it. This solution has to do with storing rain water into large containers. Rain water is 100% safe drinking water and if stored, can be used to help in numerous ways, such as in the case of a terrific drought. In encouragement, the people who collects rain water can actually get paid through means of rebate. For ever one gallon of non-pressurized storage you get 50 cents while a gallon of pressurized water gets you a dollar for a maximum of 5,000 dollars, not a bad paycheck if i had to say.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this move, in terms of encouraging people to collect water. The more water they collect, the less they will have to rely on regular tap water and the more chances that a drought would not affect them as drastically as some did before. What I wouldn't necessarily agree on is the fact that you would need to buy these storage devices and it turns into a type of investment which most would find "not worthy of their time." The idea is very nice with the perfect approach to this situation, but the fact that their might not be any rain could really hurt the investment plan, even if your goal was to help the drought situation.
In conclusion, I agree with the approach to the drought situation but would encourage a better method to store water with a little more cash return to actually be worth the investment of time.
After reading this blog post I find that more people in Texas continue to try and lessen the negative impact caused by droughts. I'm intrigued to find out how much more widespread rainwater collection systems will be in the near future. I think its a great way to conserve and manage water use, and if my local government is willing to give me a tax break on equipment to harvest rainwater, then I'm willing to invest. I also think it would be a good investment because we can't predict how long droughts will last and harvesting rainwater is the best way to take advantage of when it actually does rain. Droughts are harsh and I also think it would be good to have a source of water, other than the city's, to rely upon in such harsh times. I also agree that the growing population in Austin is another reason we should invest in rainwater collection systems and would help deal with water shortages.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading this post because it reflects us as a society making efforts to adapt to extreme climates and be more self-sufficient. Harvesting rainwater for droughts is a perfect example of the growing necessity for self-sufficiency, and I believe that many more Texas households will have more eco/cost efficient rainwater collection systems within the next few decades.
JBaylo writes about water and water collection. That tells us how we can use water collection equipment to help save water and money during times of drought and any other.
ReplyDeleteA lot of this is new to me since im not familiar with many programs that the city has. Water collection equipment can be used to one save money, two save water, and three Austin can give you a rebate of 50 cents per every gallon of unpressurized and $1.00 for every Gallon of pressururized water storage, up to 5,000 which is pretty good. this will make people make want to save money and not feel guilty for using more water. mostly in a time of drought like these. I also found it interesting that there is no sales tax on these equipment and that HOA's cannot ban such things from homes.
I really liked reading about this it makes me feel good that the city cares for its water and actually has things to help motivate people to use collectors just as they do with solar panels.Now im going to be on the look out for a good water collector that will catch water off my gutters, just as soon as we get some good amounts of rain in Texas.
Thanks!