NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:

The weather forecasters predicted that this would be a mild El Niño year, with above average rainfall. So far, Vic and I are not impressed.

With our new rainwater collecting system, we managed to collect and store about 150 gallons of water from the last couple of storms. I’ve already used most of it to water my vegetable garden. Most of the decorative landscaping in our yard is drought-tolerant, and gets by just fine through the winter on rain alone, with no need for supplemental watering. Good thing, because Huntington Beach is on mandatory water restrictions. Although watering of the landscape is permitted for 15 minutes a week under these new water emergency restrictions, we don’t need even that.

Much of our tap water in Huntington Beach comes from ground water, which is replenished by snowmelt and rainfall in the Santa Ana River watershed. But our population has grown so large that local water is no longer enough. The city also buys imported water that comes from both the Colorado River and the Sierras via the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta.

In our last column, we reported that the snowpack in the Sierras is only about 75% of what it should be this time of year. Now word has come that snow in the Rockies is also below normal, leading the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to predict continued low-flow volumes in the Colorado River. Water-wise, things aren’t looking good. Fortunately, there are new technologies that can help us conserve.

When Vic and I were in the Yosemite area a couple of weeks ago, we had a private tour of the laundry facility at Tenaya Lodge. While this may not sound like what a normal couple would do on vacation, you have probably realized by now that we’re not exactly typical tourists. We found the laundry tour quite exciting, not because we got to see the hotel’s towels and sheets being washed, but because of the new AquaRecycle water system that had been installed only days before. With this new water system, they recycle their wash water and purify it so that it can be used over and over.

The system is a complicated tangle of pipes and containers. Water goes from the washing machines after the spin cycle to a centrifuge that takes out solids like lint, hair or food particles. The next step is a special sand filter, followed by a charcoal filter. These filters remove soaps, detergents, oils, grease, and other organics. The water then passes through a UV stream and ozone bubbler to disinfect it. The water circulates through this system twice before returning to a holding tank. From there, the purified water goes back to the washing machines for the next load. After a certain number of cycles, the sand and charcoal filters are back-flushed automatically to regenerate them. You can see an animation of this process at www.aquarecycle.com.

A laundry in a resort hotel handles a lot of towels, sheets, tablecloths and napkins. Tenaya Lodge’s laundry has six industrial-sized machines running 16 hours a day, doing two loads per hour, using 165 gallons of water per machine. That’s about 20 million gallons of water a year, just to do laundry. In fact, the laundry uses 25% to 30% of all the water used in the hotel.

When it comes to water, Tenaya Lodge is self-contained. They have their own wells from which they get their water, and their own sewage treatment plant. Like everywhere else in California, their water supply is limited. And like everywhere else in the Sierra mountains, the snowpack there is dwindling due to global climate change. This means that they’re going to have even less water in the future.

One of the reasons we like staying at Tenaya Lodge is that conservation is integrated into the corporate philosophy of Delaware North, the hotel’s managing company. They constantly strive to improve on conservation. Tenaya’s chief engineer, Roger Vanderburg, was looking for a way to economize on energy usage. While researching more eco-friendly dryers, he came across AquaRecycle.

Not only will the new system help conserve water, it will also conserve a great deal of energy. The hotel’s water comes out of the well at 40 degrees and then needs to be heated to 150 degrees for doing laundry. The water for every load needed that heating. But the recycled wash water loses only about 10 to 20 degrees in being repurified, so it requires only modest reheating.

The initial cost of the system was not trifling — $165,000. However, Vanderburg calculates that the AquaRecycle system will pay for itself within 13 months due to energy savings.

The beauty of this AquaRecycle system is that it saves water as well as energy. And with the savings in energy, water and sewage treatment and concomitant fees, the system pays for itself within two years for most users. While not practical for home use, a system such as this would be a wise investment for any facility that does a lot of laundry.

It’s going to take all of us doing whatever we can to get us through this coming water shortage. At home, we need to conserve water as much as we can. And businesses such as laundromats and large hotels need to do their share by looking at innovative new technologies such as AquaRecycle.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at LMurrayPhD@gmail.com .