There is municiply provided water available, called raw water which, as per the standard has less than 5,000 mg/l of Total Disolved Solids. The problem is that this is well water (but drawn on a municiple scale, not project scale). The EPA standard as well as the standard applicable to our project requires less than 500 mg/l TDS as well as a number of other limits. Potable water is also provided by the municpality but has undergone desalination or other treatment to reach this level of purity. Reading through the reference guide seems to contradict itself. The Intent mentions potable water, surface water and subsurface water use reduction but the requirements only mention potable water reduction. And the definition of potable water states that it meets EPA or municipality limits. Our municipaly provided water is well water but not potable water. As far as I can tell, this specific situation has not been addressed by LEED. Any help is appreciated as we would like to benefit from using this raw water for irrigation and waste (flushing of toilets).

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Kath Williams

LEED Fellow 2011, Principal

Kath Williams + Associates

LEEDuser Premium Member

103 thumbs up

Tue, 04/12/2011 - 14:10

We have had two projects certified that faced the challenge of getting city wells that were "non-potable" accepted by LEED as suitable for irrigation. We failed both times and the reviews said that if the wells were truly "non-potable" they should have purple faucets, be publicly marked as "not suitable for drinking" and that we prove that they are inspected and tested regularly by EPA. Since both were public projects and the wells on public land, we knew that was probably never going to be the case because of the liability if someone did drink out of the spicket.

Agnes Vorbrodt

Principal

VvS | Architects & Consultants

LEEDuser Basic Member

23 thumbs up

Wed, 07/20/2011 - 19:29

The project I'm working on is using non-potable well water for irrigation. We would like to benefit from this credit in our certification. From the post above I understood that the well water would have to be clearly marked as non-potable, what we can definitely do, as the well is on site. It has been tested and failed the test for drinking water for a number of chemicals exceeded the allowed levels. What else would I need to support our claim of the credit? Thank you.

Susann Geithner

Principal

Emerald Built Environments

LEEDuser Basic Member

900 thumbs up

Fri, 07/22/2011 - 19:23

I would be careful here. The reference guide clearly states that using groundwater (well water ) doesn't not meet the intent of the credit to reduce potable water use for irrigation if it's just installed for irrigation purposes. (see page 183) Also the last sentence got changed with the addenda in February 2011.:"Additionally the credit can be met when landscape irrigation is provided by raw water (excluding .... ground water) that would otherwise be treated specifically for non-potable uses. Only ponds designed solely for the purpose of storm water retention or detention can be used for this credit." Depending on the registration date of your projects you might not have to comply with this. But in the broad view of things using well water is not helping the natural water circulation. A storm water reuse system is.

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