Alternate Water Sources Working Group Welcomes Hollie Hall as a Speaker

By Compliant Farms | September 20, 2018

The Alternate Water Sources Working Group in Sonoma County featured two speakers at its September 18, 2018, meeting, including our very own Hollie Hall, PhD. She gave a talk called “Water Use on Cannabis Farms” where she shared her knowledge of issues and opportunities that legal cannabis growers face: water sourcing issues, water quality issues, and the features of sustainable cannabis farm water systems.

Originally called the Sonoma County Graywater Working Group when it was founded in 2008, the Alternate Water Sources Working Group has studied the state and county graywater laws following the passage of SB 1258, conducted a listening session that evolved into a survey of stakeholders, and created a matrix of issues and indicators relevant to graywater.

The working group has educated community members about the new graywater standards adopted in 2010. With financial assistance from the Sonoma County Energy Independence Program, the group produced a comprehensive brochure emphasizing the Clothes Washer system. The final brochure was a collaborative effort with 9 other Sonoma County cities.

Other accomplishments of this working group include:

Collaborating with the Sonoma County Water Agency to draft a graywater curriculum now incorporated into the Agency’s Qualified Water Efficient Landscaper (QWEL) Training Program.
Surveying the Sonoma County Regional Climate Protection Authority team and other experts in the field of wastewater energy use about the benefits wastewater can provide from an energy/greenhouse gas (GHG) perspective. Their responses provided food for thought for further analysis by the Sonoma County Energy Independence Program (SCEIP) committee.
Presentations to state and local officials about the benefits of water reuse (Board of Supervisors, Regional Water Quality Control Boards, California Conference of Directors of Environmental Health, California Environmental Health Association).
Ongoing quarterly speaker presentations/dialogs on topics of water efficiency, conservation and reuse.