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One of our huge problems is limiting green solutions by focusing on the technology end of things. How much energy do we use to transport water to the City that could be retrieved from the aquifer. How much energy do we use repairing flood damage to our streets, hills and such? We could reduce that immediately by changing zoning regulations to legalize and even require homes and small businesses to allow run-off from roofs to reach the ground and soak into the aquifer. It could work just like the Friend of the Urban Forest tree planting program. Have a non profit agency come to people homes or small business, reroute downspouts to a Dutch drain type of system and allow our groundwater to recharge itself. It’ as close to free as we’re going to come. Another way to accomplish even more would be to require all property owners to have unpave dirt, hopefully planted as a garden, so rainwater continues to have access to the ground and thus the aquifer. Finally, as we repair sewer pipes near remaining creeks or near outlets for underground creeks, route them separately so their water doesn’t go into our sewage treatment plants, but into a renewed system of creeks, wetlands and our existing lakes and ponds. That would cost money, but it very likely to be even more costly to create infrastructure to construct more water treatment facilities at our existing water treatment plants.
Dan Murphy
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