Innovative Company of the Year Finalist

Company finds way to harvest Hawaii’s rain

Their motives were as pure as the rainwater they wanted to catch and reuse, intent on conserving the Islands’ resources and improving the environment.

As Maria Steele and her family sat around their kitchen table with a white board brainstorming environmental businesses, the idea of rainwater harvesting seemed a natural way to promote water conservation and to protect Hawaii’s resources for future generations.

Geo Force Horizons was created that day in 2007, think-tank fashion, in Steele’s family home in Kaneohe, now the office and demo home for their rainwater harvesting systems.

Catching and reusing rainwater for irrigation, flushing toilets and even drinking water is becoming increasingly popular in certain regions on the Mainland where drought conditions are common. It is mandated in Australia. The industry is gaining momentum as the critical need for water conservation is recognized.

“Australia is very seasonal,” said Bob Wilkinson, CEO and owner of BW Management Solutions on Oahu. “They may see rain for three months out of the year there and then drought conditions for the other nine months. As an island, we are vulnerable to droughts as well. And while we have rain, it’s seasonal.”

Water conservation is not a new concept. Front-load washing machines, low-flush toilets, low-flow shower heads and products to encourage using less water have been around for years. But Steele says more needs to be done in order to make a difference for future generations.

“We’re going to do our part to make a difference and set an example for others to do the same,” she said. “We’ve partnered with a company in Texas to get us started. We’ve researched the systems, the tanks, and offer a complete price range of systems.”

Harvesting rainwater involves collecting it from a roof with traditional gutters and directing it to holding tanks where it is put through an osmosis filtering system, a charcoal filtering system and then an ultraviolet filtering system before it goes into the house.

Because Steele’s father was an environmental manager at Grace Pacific, and her brother is a general contractor, Geo Force Horizons is able to offer a turnkey installation.

“We’re certified, we have the tanks and we can design and build the systems,” Steele said. “Some of our competitors only offer the tanks, or they may only offer the design. But we are a contractor who can complete the entire job for you.”

To increase awareness, Steele has co-written two bills related to stormwater compliance with state Rep. Lynn Finnegan, R-Pearlridge-Moanalua Gardens. She has spoken to the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, as well as architectural and design firms, contractors, engineers, consultants and landscape irrigation companies about rainwater harvesting.

“Raising awareness, that’s the first step,” Steele said. “You have to have the courage to shake things up a bit. It starts with having an awareness. Then you have to ask yourself, ‘How do we live to reflect our goals?’ ”

From irrigation in the state’s agriculture crops to residential applications, Geo Force has a variety of systems, depending on need and cost. Homeowners with small yards or who want to start small can buy kits that they can hook up themselves for between $1,500 and $6,000.

“Rainwater tastes good, plants love it, your skin loves it,” Steele said. “We provide free educational lectures and presentations. This provides a link to understanding the importance of water conservation, how we can achieve solutions, and how our services can assist with conservation goals.”

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Sister and brother Maria and Jeremy Steele of Geo Force Horizons speak with Mark Leon, right, about installing a rainwater catchment system at his home. “You have to have the courage to shake things up a bit,” Maria says.

The United States Geological Survey document, “Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 1995,” states that, of the 40 billion gallons of water withdrawn each day by water utilities, only 34 billion gallons made it to the end-use customers. While 15% is not considered a ‘bad’ non-revenue water number, those 6 billion gallons represent a level of waste and lost revenue no water manager would feel comfortable with.

Read full article....

A building with a Rainwater Harvesting System has the potential to garner up to eight LEED points.

• 1 point for installing above-code measures that result in 20 percent water savings.
• 1 point for installing above-code measures that result in 30 percent water savings (typically waterless urinals or other measures).
• 1 point (innovation credit) for installing above-code measures that result in up to 40 percent water savings (rainwater harvesting or other water re-use).
• Up to 2 points for storm water reduction (storm water management practices).
• Up to 2 points for water-efficient irrigation.
• 1 point for reducing the project's sewage generation from use of potable water by 50% or more.

LEED Project Profile

Kroon Hall Rainwater Harvesting System to Save Half-Million Gallons a Year

By Alan Bisbort, from the Fall 2007 issue of Environment: Yale magazine.

The rainwater harvesting system, collaboratively designed by Nitsch Engineering, Philadelphia-based Olin Partnership and Arup, an engineering firm with offices in the United States and Europe, will allow all rainwater that falls on Kroon Hall’s roof and grounds to enter into a 24-hour-a-day recycling process that will take place in a pond and subterranean tanks. Together, Nitsch and Olin transformed the current patchwork of above-ground service roads into “watering holes,” figuratively and literally – gathering places for students, as well as for the reuse of harvested rainwater.

Read More..

The Story of Bottled Water

Click Link to watch the Story Of Bottled Water... a real eye opener!

PUUNENE, Hawaii—Two important sides of local history are fighting over water rights here in the central valley of Maui, pitting the last of the state's once-powerful sugar plantations against native farmers who want to grow a vegetable tied to Hawaii's ancient culture.

Maui's Water Battle

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Stu Woo/The Wall Street Journal

Drought conditions over the past two years have reduced yields at the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Co.

For more than a century, the plantation has diverted water from streams for its operations. The native Hawaiians, in coalition with environmentalists, want the water back in the streams to restore the habitat and to cultivate taro, a leafy root vegetable native Hawaiians consider sacred.

After a half-decade of hearings and legal maneuvering, the Hawaii Commission on Water Resource Management is set to issue a key ruling in the dispute in coming months. The decision, which is likely to be appealed in court, will dictate how much water will be returned to four major streams in western Maui and how much will continue to flow to the sugar plantation. An average of 60 million gallons of water flows through the streams daily, and most of it is diverted.

The ruling could have significant consequences: The sugar plantation says it could close if it loses water, while native Hawaiians hope it sets a precedent for a case involving a bigger chunk of water the plantation diverts daily.

For centuries, farms growing taro spanned the slopes above this town. The vegetable was crucial to Hawaiian culture; families would avoid having an argument if poi, a purple paste made from mashing taro roots, was on the dinner table out of respect for the taro.

"It's important because our ancestors believe they descended from taro," said 31-year-old Hokuao Pellegrino on a recent morning, as he stood before a farm he restored with his family. "It's not just any old crop we used for food. We're connected to it spiritually."

Native Hawaiians said taro farming all but ceased after foreigners took over land and water in the mid-1800s, largely by cutting deals with King Kamehameha III and local chiefs.

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Stu Woo/The Wall Street Journal

HC&S employees Garret Hew, left, and Rick Volner Jr. at the plantation.

Sugar plantations then thrived, hiring thousands of immigrants and locals. In Puunene, the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. pumped water and money into Maui's arid central valley, helping to turn it into a fertile commercial center.

"The plantation lifestyle built this state," said Christopher Benjamin, general manager of HC&S, the last remaining plantation and a division of Alexander & Baldwin Inc.

Sugar plantations starting closing in the 1980s because production costs rose. Mr. Benjamin said HC&S survived because it was the biggest and benefited from economies of scale. Over the past two years, though, it lost $45 million because of a drought, he said.

The seven-member water commission's decision will be pivotal, both sides said. The struggling sugar company, which irrigates one-seventh of its plantation by diverting most of the water from these western Maui streams, said it would be forced to close and lay off its 800 workers if it loses half the water, as the commissioner who heard the case recommended.

The native Hawaiians and environmentalists believe the decision will set a precedent for future Maui water disputes, including another pending case the commission could also address this year. That conflict involves eastern Maui streams that provide most of the sugar plantation's water. Taro farmers say they don't get enough water because of the diversions.

Arguing the water case for the coalition of environmentalists and native Hawaiians is Earthjustice, a law firm focusing on environmental issues. It said water should go back to the streams of Na Wai 'Eha, or the Four Great Waters, because the state constitution requires the government to protect and restore the environment and native Hawaiian traditions.

Lawyer Isaac Moriwake cited a 2000 state Supreme Court ruling, which forced a defunct sugar company to return some stream water. He said the decision also reaffirmed water as a public, not private, resource.

HC&S isn't the only defendant in the case. It controls the majority of the western Maui stream water in dispute, with the rest under the jurisdiction of the Wailuku Water Co., a former sugar company itself. Wailuku didn't return a call for comment.

HC&S has always been an efficient water user, said Mr. Benjamin, the HC&S general manager. The plantation's water diversions keep the naturally desert-like valley green, he says, and its long-term plan is to transform into a producer of renewable biofuels.

The state constitution also protects economic and agricultural interests, he says, and HC&S provides hundreds of jobs and spends tens of millions of dollars in the local economy each year. "Our use of water is absolutely in the public interest," he said.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced on Monday that it would overhaul drinking water regulations so that officials could police dozens of contaminants simultaneously and tighten rules on the chemicals used by industries.

Cliff Owen/Associated Press

Lisa Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said it planned stricter regulation of four cancer-causing chemicals.

Toxic Waters

A series about the worsening pollution in America's waters and regulators' response.

• Go to Series

The new policies, which are still being drawn up, will probably force some local water systems to use more effective cleaning technologies, but may raise water rates.

“There are a range of chemicals that have become more prevalent in our products, our water and our bodies in the last 50 years,” the E.P.A. administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, said in a speech on Monday. Regulations have not kept pace with scientific discoveries, and so the agency is issuing “a new vision for providing clean, safe drinking water.”

Along with its other steps, Ms. Jackson said the E.P.A. was readying stricter regulations on four carcinogens often detected in drinking water, including a chemical commonly used in dry cleaning.

The announcements come amid growing complaints that systems across the nation are delivering tap water that poses health risks to residents. Government and other scientists have identified hundreds of chemicals that are linked to diseases in small concentrations and that are unregulated in drinking water, or policed at limits that still pose serious risks.

In some instances, laws are sufficient, but they have been ignored: More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to an analysis of federal data by The New York Times. And the other major water law — the Clean Water Act — has been violated more than half a million times, though few polluters were ever punished.

To correct such lapses, the E.P.A. intends to reform agency policies that essentially require regulators to examine pollutants one at a time. Those adjustments will allow government scientists to evaluate large groups of similar contaminants at the same time and to issue new rules that apply to dozens of chemicals.

“This is a dramatic change in how we think about regulation,” said Cynthia C. Dougherty, the director of the agency’s office of ground water and drinking water. “We’ll be able to move much faster and issue stronger rules.” The agency previously announced it was developing plans to crack down on polluters and force water systems to abide by cleanliness laws.

“We lost the public over the past decade by moving slowly and focusing on solitary contaminants that most people have never heard of,” said Dr. Pankaj Parekh, director of the water quality division for Los Angeles. “This will help us talk about health impacts, rather than long, complicated chemical names.”

As part of its announcement, the agency said efforts were continuing on 14 drinking water standards, including rules regarding lead, copper, arsenic, atrazine — a popular herbicide — and possibly perchlorate, an unregulated rocket fuel additive that has generated controversy in the past.

“We’re happy to see this,” said Brian Ramaley, director of the Newport News Waterworks in Virginia, and a former president of the Association of Metropolitan Water Authorities. “There has been a reluctance to get tough in the past, and hopefully this signals that things have changed.”

Until new policies and rules are unveiled, it is difficult to say precisely how these shifts will affect Americans. Some within the E.P.A. and Congress remain skeptical.

“There is a history of this agency making big announcements, and then changing very little,” said an agency regulator who was not authorized to speak to the media. “The real test will be to see how many new chemicals have been regulated six months from now.”

Currently, only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, though more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States. No chemicals have been added to that list since 2000.

Any new policies will most likely force water systems to use more advanced technologies, which are often costlier.

“It is always difficult to find the resources we need,” said Mr. Parekh. “But these new policies will make it a little easier to justify rate increases, because they will help us give the public a more realistic picture of what is in their water.”

To that end, the agency said on Monday that it also planned to collect more state data. There is no central government database that allows officials to monitor water tests by local systems. As a result, it has often been difficult to detect national trends, or for residents to know what is flowing through their taps.

Officials said the agency would develop the new rules over the next six months by consulting with outside experts and other members of the public.

Rainwater Harvesting System Provides Drinking Water for Sustainable Hawaii Home

Solar electric, solar hot water and now, rainwater harvesting.  This in-the-city, but off-the-grid Hawaiian home provides a glimpse of the not-to-distant future where sustainable technologies, like photovoltaic cells, rainwater collection systems and wind power generators will be the norm for many homes.

These unique narrow tanks are the perfect fit for this small lot.  They can store up to 1,800 gallons of water.  The entire rainwater collection system is built from drinking-water quality components.  Before entering the house, the rainwater is filtered through sediment and carbon filters and sterilized by ultraviolet light.  This simple yet powerful system was designed specifically for this family's needs and will collect, store and distribute enough water to take the home off of the municipal water system.

EPA Announces Plans to Regulate Post-Construction Stormwater Runoff, Requests Comment on Draft Industry Survey to Inform Rulemaking

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it will propose and take final action by Nov. 2012 on a first-time national rule that would restrict stormwater discharges from newly developed and redeveloped sites.  Currently, EPA is requesting the construction industry's feedback on a draft questionnaire that will inform and guide the new stormwater runoff rulemaking.  The final industry questionnaire would require certain general contractors to provide detailed technical information for up to 10 projects completed in 2009 - including project type/size, stormwater management controls and associated costs, discharge permit forms - as well as company-wide financial information spanning the last five years.

Please provide pilconisl@agc.org (Leah Pilconis, senior environmental advisor to AGC) with your feedback on the DRAFT Industry Questionnaire by Dec. 14, 2009, so that AGC may compile, prepare and submit comments to EPA in advance of the Dec. 29 deadline. The draft questionnaire is online at http://www.epa.gov/npdes/pubs/ind_questionnaire.pdf. 

Please click here for the full AGC’s Environmental Observer article.

Geo Force Horizons invites you to become an Environmentally Conscious person and business owner, for our future and the future of the next generations.  Become a Participant and join us as we work together to accomplish these goals!

Clean Air and Global Climate Change
Protect and improve the air so it is healthy to breathe and risks to human health and the environment are reduced. Reduce greenhouse gas intensity by enhancing partnerships with businesses and other sectors.

Clean and Safe Water
Ensure drinking water is safe. Restore and maintain oceans, watersheds, and their aquatic ecosystems to protect human health, support economic and recreational activities, and provide healthy habitat for fish, plants, and wildlife.

Land Preservation and Restoration
Preserve and restore the land by using innovative waste management practices and cleaning up contaminated properties to reduce risks posed by releases of harmful substances.

Healthy Communities and Ecosystems
Protect, sustain, or restore the health of people, communities, and ecosystems using integrated and comprehensive approaches and partnerships.

Compliance and Environmental Stewardship
Protect human health and the environment through ensuring compliance with environmental requirements by enforcing environmental statutes, preventing pollution, and promoting environmental stewardship. Encourage innovation and provide incentives for governments, businesses, and the public that promote environmental stewardship and long-term sustainable outcomes.

Mahalo for your soppurt!