Marin Municipal Water District checks out our project!

Charlene Burgi who is a Water Conservation Specialist Supervisor for the Marin Municipal Water District came to San Rafael High School yesterday to see what we were planning. We spoke with her about our design and she was delighted to see what the students will be doing in our garden to save energy and water. Many ideas were discussed concerning the opportunities for MMWD to get involved with the project and how they might be able to assist. We discussed the possibility of using the Sustainable Living Lab as a demonstration site for the MMWD. This would give us the ability to extend this project beyond the confines of the school and get the students involved in the community. Cool!

We also talked with Ed (the district's facility guru) about what we were doing and he had some great suggestions and some good news. He told us that power would not be a problem, which might allow us to avoid using a large battery bank for the irrigation control unit. Although this does put us back on the electrical grid, our solar array would be grid tied, and we could monitor the energy used and the energy produced. I am of the opinion that the grid IS a great battery, and it eliminates some complexity in the system. The sensor stations would still be solar powered, so that would give the students exposure to two different solar power storage methods. He also believed that pumps would be better than solenoid valves because it would eliminate the need to have our rain catchment barrels up high on a platform. He suggested that we should avoid elevating the water tanks because we would need to secure them for seismic activity! Wow, I didn't even think about that. So, we might have a hybrid design where we have our larger main tank(s) on the ground, and a pump keeps a smaller elevated staging tank full. The water for the garden comes from the staging tank, and that tank will be small enough that we wouldn't need to create such a significant structure for it.

Next step for me is to get the wireless Arduino's talking - that will be for my next post. Cheers.