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City graywater info sheet is incorrect
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Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

I truly appreciated your article regarding the city of Manteca’s proposed reduced cost graywater permit fee. As a professional graywater installer located in Sonora, I was curious where you found the average and professional cost for system installation? I do believe those to be relatively accurate numbers and were actually very helpful for me.

We just finished our first home and garden show here and found that the average person has very little understanding of graywater and no idea about state standards or proper installation techniques. An improperly installed system, even if it meets city permit requirements and inspection, can really foul badly and produce odors, kill landscape plants and plug with slime and other crud.

I will also contact the city to discuss their information sheet, as it contains erroneous and incorrect information. In particular, softeners do not kill plants anymore, unless they are improperly operating or maintained and then they are putting out too much salt for long term human consumption as well. A properly designed graywater system will use a high acid mulch layer or basin to neutralize the salts anyway.

Also, we encourage a graywater to garden system! The water must be discharged subsurface anyway and you are only prohibited from irrigating root crops such as carrots, beets etc.

 

Peter J. Kampa, President/General Manager

Kampa Community Solutions, LLC

Sonora