Water at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage
Water is an extremely valuable natural resource, and it’s no less precious at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. Instead of depending heavily on county water availability and infrastructure, we provide most of our own water needs through rainwater catchment and storage.
Rainwater Catchment and Storage
With relatively simple gutter and downspout systems on most buildings, we are capable of catching large quantities of rainwater for all of our water needs: drinking, cooking, bathing, and cleaning. We don’t use water for toilets: instead, we employ the far less wasteful humanure system and composting toilets for the human waste side of things. (Important to note, too, is that all of our water is filtered before any potable uses.)
Large underground cisterns have the capacity to store thousands of gallons of water, and a constant mind for water conservation means that we are well-supplied during most of the year, except in times of drought or heavy usage of common facilities in the peak of our summer season.
You don’t need a massive underground cistern to store rainwater, however — there are a number of smaller, simpler systems deployed throughout the village, too. Fifty-five gallon drums can be part of a smaller rainwater catchment system, and these can be useful for smaller structures with less demand for water usage, or to provide extra water for the garden, for example. Are you interested in much more information about rainwater catchment?
More important than any of these particular systems is regular attention to water conservation. That means that we are very attentive to our water usage in all aspects of life: dong dishes, taking showers, etc. When you collect every drop of your own water supply, you don’t want to waste water in ways that will deplete your stores!