For anyone wondering why a backhoe was busy digging out the west side of the Visitor Information Center, DCVB is officially in the rain harvesting business. Sustainable Building Solutions installed the 3,000-gallon system so it will directly feed the landscape irrigation system.
The roof on this building would feed much more than 3,000 gallons, but it wasn’t cost-effective for us to dig up any more than we did. This is much smaller than the cistern American Tobacco is installing to feed its “river,” which evaporates 8,000 gallons a week or about the capacity of a tanker truck. It is also much less ambitious than the solar water-heating system Greenfire is installing in Rogers Alley.
Sustainable is doing large and small systems all over Durham and surrounding communities.
Now the big question! When everyone is harvesting, what will that do to ground water? Or will it just remove water from the storm runoff system? Both I suspect.
Maybe in the future, the City will purchase water from harvesters, much like the power companies purchase power from facilities and homes with solar systems?
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