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History of Graywater Regulation |
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Written by Editor •
Thursday, 26 February 2009 10:58
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Timeline of Evolving Graywater Standards in California and U.S.
Last revised 2/2/2009
Summary: A history of the evolution of gray water standards; mainly California-centric, but includes the rest of the U.S. as well.
For corrections, additions, and clarifications to this account, please email
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. Thanks to Larry Farwell, the guy who started it all; Jane Taylor of the California Building Standards Comission; and Steve Bilson, dogged legal warrior of ReWater Systems, for their input.
August 1989— Santa Barbara legalizes greywater. (They are the first district in the US with building codes to do so, it is said.) Santa Barbara Board of supevisors approves residential use of greywater in response to a letter from Goleta water district conservation office. This letter asks that greywater be redefined as separate from blackwater. Kitchen sink and diaper laundry water stay with toilet water under the "blackwater" heading. There is apparently no state prohibition of greywater; county is the only obstacle to overcome. Legaleese: Appendix C: change to SB County Building Code ordinance 3665.
May 1991— Five other cities or counties have a greywater ordinance by this point. Santa Barbara County publishes "How to Use Greywater: Guidelines to the reuse of Greywater in Santa Barbara County."
Feb 5th, 1992— CA ad Hoc greywater committee releases Appendix W, which was based on the International Plumbing and Mechanical Official’s Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC) format, which California adopts as its model plumbing code. Appendix W provides only for mini leach fields, which can serve for greywater irrigation in a pinch, but are more suited for disposal of clarified septic effluent. Mini-leachfields as described in the code have not been built anywhere before this time, or since, so far as I know.
Mid February, 1992— Assembly Bill 3518 (AB3518, Sher, Palo Alto) an act to add chapter 22 to division 7 of the water code: "greywater systems for single family residences”. This bill requires a greywater code to be created by DWR in consultation with DHS by July 1, 1993. The idea behind this legislation was to give California a greywater irrigation code in a format that building officials would be accustomed to using and in a place where they could readily find it.
AB3518 was unanimously passed by the Assembly and Senate and became California’s greywater irrigation law. Water Code Section 14875 et seq AB3518 directed DWR, in consultation with DHS, to write a code for safe greywater “use”, versus disposal as found in Appendix W, which had been sent by Fady Mattar, then Director of Standards for IAPMO, to IAPMO’s full body to be considered for adoption into the UPC as an appendix. With AB3518, Heavyweight CA had broken through IAPMO’s stranglehold on California’s plumbing code.
[For details on AB3518, click here.]
September 1992— Greywater legalized in any/all of 17 UPC based Western States. Appendix J was adopted by the UPC at a meeting in Anchorage, AK. People were stunned. No one was against it at the meeting; it just sailed through. But per IAPMO’s appendix, greywater was only legalized in any of the 17 UPC based Western States if they adopted Appendix J, and many local officials, who had not participated in the exchange of science during California’s state code process, and the fast tracked discussion for adopting Appendix J, refused to adopt it. It was eventually changed to Appendix G, some say to confuse people between California’s Appendix G and IAPMO’s Appendix G.
Note that this is a scant 3.5 years after Larry's first letter to the SB County board of supervisors. The advocates for this state law acknowledge that its immediate value has been nearly destroyed by anti-greywater zealots at certain cities and counties during the ensuing years, but it opened the door to the greywater regulation revolution that will pick up steam later in Arizona.
In January 1995, ReWater Systems, Inc. sponsored Assembly Bill 313 (AB313, MacDonald, Bakersfield) to revise the state’s Appendix G to allow multi-family, commercial, and institutional greywater irrigation systems, as well as to allow protected connections to fresh water supplies for cleaning filters and supplemental irrigation. The same large group of stakeholders that wre involved with AB3518 and more were involved in that 2-year code-writing process.
On March 18, 1997, CA state code revised to allow multi-family, commercial, and institutional greywater irrigation systems, as well as to allow protected connections to fresh water supplies for cleaning filters and supplemental irrigation, and clean up some of the other difficult provisions. , still called Appendix G, was published and became available for use everywhere in California. Despite an effort by former IAPMO Director of Standards, Fady Mattar, then a Commissioner on the CBSC, to administratively delete the changes referencing fresh water connections, this California code remains unchanged.
The code version produced by DWR titled “Appendix G-A” is simply the version used by DWR. It is the same code as that used by the public.
January 16, 2001— Arizona addresses the dismal compliance rate issue by issuing one blanket permit for every greywater system in the state that meets a short list of reasonable requirements. Greywater regulation revolution! Opening the door wide that CA has cracked but only enough at that a few dozen permits are issued in ten years,
March 11th 2003— New Mexico adopts AZ style code. Greywater regulation revolution continues...
[dates?]— Greywater regulation revolution continues...Texas adopts Arizona-style code.
2007— CPC mistakenly incorporates an old version of the code into the body of the CPC as Chapter 16 , thus administratively setting back permitting clarity a decade. The CBSC discovers this error and issues the correction as a canary colored “Errata” to be included in future code mailings or by request to the CBSC. The adoption matrix in the front of the CPC clearly shows that chapter 16 is not adopted and Appendix G is. Whew! What a mess. This is effective Jan1. 2008 ---probably until Jan 1. 2011. Here's the adoption matrix document:
 2007cpcAdoptionMatrix.pdf 215.09 Kb 02/26/2009, 11:23
April 27, 2007—Montana follows the civilized world in definition of greywater: Montana's greywater law HB 259 follows the European Union and Australian definition of greywater, which includes kitchen sink water.
[For more information on Montana's law, click here.]
July 2, 2008— CA Senate Bill 1258 directs the Department of Housing and Community Development to develop a more wide-ranging set of standards for residential graywater systems for both indoor and outdoor uses. After another extensive debate on the science, these new standards will then be recommended to the California Building Standards Commission for adoption. This is a chance for California to catch up with the revolution it has started. Authority over non-residential greywater systems stays with CA DWR, which will probably stick with appendix G, as they have no funding for changes. Jan 1, 2011 (projected) In California the new HCD code (whatever it is) will take effect for residential, and DWR code (whatever it is) for commercial.
Early 2009— Nevada submits bill for AZ style code (in process). Greywater regulation revolution continues...
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