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From Waste to Wonder - UO's Grey Water Conservation Project

Jan. 15, 2023 - By Keith Dickey

Lima, Peru, and Eugene, Oregon, are worlds apart in many ways. But spend some time with Kory Russel, an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Studies at the University of Oregon, and you will learn there are communities in both places with challenges of access to sustainable and efficient water use.

 

Kory has a photo in his office depicting a highly condensed neighborhood in Lima, a city where he and some of his students work on sustainable water projects.

“It is the second driest capitol city in the world, and all the water is trucked up to homes,” he says. “They are paying a premium for water, so if they can reuse it, it is a major economic benefit to them.”  The key is the development of low-tech systems to capture and filter grey water, which is water drained from kitchen sinks, baths, laundry, and other non-human waste sources. When properly treated, it does not need to be stored and removed and is safe to introduce back into the environment as irrigation for plants or gardens.

 

Like these communities in Lima, local CSS sites in Eugene do not have access to city water or sewage connections. Each community relies on a regular delivery of clean drinking water that is stored on-site. In addition, the waste grey water is collected and requires removal for recycling.  As supply and removal is costly, there is very little, if any, water on site to use for irrigation during the dry summer months.

 

This problem for CSS provided an opportunity for Kory and his students at the UO. Patching together money from several grants and using this challenge as a real-world teaching tool, his team—consisting of several graduate-level and more than 20 undergrad students—designed and built a low-tech grey water filtration system for the CSS Village site.  While clean drinking water is still required to be trucked into the community, the need for collecting and removing the grey water no longer exists. The ability to reclaim this water now creates the potential for irrigating plants and gardens during the summer dry season.

Kory says that the community members at the Skinner Village site have embraced the project and helped to provide and implement adjustments to the system. “What’s really been cool is that every time I’ve been to the site there are community members who will come out and are super interested and will help out. We had the filtration system set up with a grease trap that wasn’t quite functioning correctly, and the folks there just sort of modified it to work better.” As part of the project, Kory’s students compiled written instructions for CSS on the design and maintenance of the system. “One of the things that we want to do is update that manual," Kory says, “So that they are not reliant on us showing up with a bunch of students, and CSS has the expertise to maintain the systems.”


According to Tabitha Eck, Director of Operations at CSS, the success of this pilot program at Skinner Village has resulted in funding from The Oregon Country Fair for the development of similar grey water reclamation systems at five additional CSS sites. Tabitha says, “It’s just a matter of getting the bodies in the right place at the right time and the resources to implement this.” 


Kory is excited about working with the CSS team on additional sites with his students. While the fundamentals of the filtration systems are the same, the design is greatly influenced by each location's available space and landscape. “You’re taking the basic function of a wetland, and you are shrinking it into a box,” says Kory. 


The Skinner Village and similar projects associated with the UO are part of an interdisciplinary platform that Kory and several other professors called Landscape for Humanity created. The emphasis is to research, design, and build landscape-based water systems for abundant food, energy, and water.  To learn more, visit their website at landscape4humanity.org.

Eugene Parking Ban Opposition Testimony

12 Mar, 2024
It's not too late to share your thoughts on this proposed update. Send your written testimony to mayorcouncilandcitymanager@eugene-or.gov .

Incarceration and Homelessness: Breaking the Cycle

15 Jan, 2024
Formerly incarcerated people are almost ten times more likely to be homeless than the general population, according to a study from the Prison Policy Initiative. Jack spent 27 years in prison, from the age of 33 to 60. “It is a long time. It's an entire lifetime,” he says. At first, he thought he might never get out and continued what he calls “bad behavior.” But he saw others who participated in educational programs and were successful in getting their sentences reduced. He realized if he started “acting right,” he might get out. He especially credits a program called “Nonviolent Communication” with helping him. He started using what he learned and realized that “the person we communicate worst with is ourselves.”

New CSS Director of Community Impact: Black Burrell

13 Jan, 2024
Did you know CSS has a shared leadership model, with three directors? This November, Blake Burrell joined CSS as our new Director of Community Impact. His role supports all of our direct service staff, managing internal relationship-building, culture creation, program operation, mentoring, and conflict resolution. Read on for his introduction:

Volunteer Spotlight: Veronica Paredes

12 Jan, 2024
Veronica Paredes has been helping sew the weatherproof porch coverings ("scrims") for the Huts, recently working 26 hours to complete 34 scrims for us before the holidays.

Bike and Build Volunteers Assist in Refurbishing Huts

13 Oct, 2023
Bike and Build organization was established as a nonprofit in 2003. Its website summarizes its mission: “Bike and Build engages young adults in service-oriented cycling trips to raise awareness for the affordable housing cause. We advocate for the need for affordable housing in thousands of communities across the country.” As teams bike from town to town, they volunteer for service projects and give presentations about issues surrounding the lack of affordable housing. Since 2003 Bike and Build estimates that over 3,800 participants have biked over 11 million miles and donated over 255,000 volunteer community service hours to local organizations throughout the country.

October 2023: Letter from the Director of Philanthropy

12 Oct, 2023
In some ways, CSS is going back to its roots, including the re-engagement of clients as volunteers and the focus on hiring individuals from our Safe Spot Communities. In other ways, we’re continuing to branch out—engaging with the broader community in new and unique ways, partnering with outside organizations, and looking for chances to expand our reach outside of Lane County. We encourage you to follow us on social media as we frequently highlight our activities and outreach efforts there.

Not Quite All-in Funding

12 Oct, 2023
Seventeen Lane County organizations running 28 programs addressing homelessness recently received a total of $18.4 million from Governor Tina Kotek’s emergency homelessness program through an effort called “All-In Funding.” Community Supported Shelters was not one of them.

Q&Q with Community Supported Shelters

09 Oct, 2023
This new program will allow us to support our unhoused clients in developing new skills, building confidence, and eventually reentering the workforce. This starts with encouraging clients to volunteer with our staff in various roles, including maintenance, kitchen, laundry, and peer support work. Once have developed the skillset necessary to perform the functions of the job, they’ll be able to apply...

Chris Teasdale: Being A Neighbor

21 Jul, 2023
As Community Supported Shelters staff and volunteers have been busy creating the physical infrastructure for five new Safe Spots—preparing lots, providing access, building Huts and common buildings—the service team has been going through a transformation to better meet the needs of people in all the CSS camps, including almost 100 people who are beginning to move into the new camps.

Staff Spotlight: Dustin Foskett

20 Jul, 2023
The human component. It doesn’t take long into a conversation with Dustin Foskett, the new Facilities Manager at Community Supported Shelters, for him to bring that into focus. His path over the years—from Bolivia where he helped build shelters for children and orphanages to the island of Rota in the Pacific where he helped develop an aquaponics program—is full of examples of promoting shelter and food securities, which he considers core to nonprofit work.
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