Global Water Resources is a Arizona water utility that operates 16 water and waste water facilities here in Arizona and are huge supporters of using water in a sustainable manner. Their LEED certified silver Global Water Center is just down the street from where I live and this past weekend I had the opportunity to tour it and their sewage treatment facility.

Like an idiot I forgot to take a picture of the outside of the building, so here’s the rendering of it found on Global Water’s website. The real building looks very nice.

LEED Certified Silver

The atrium is open to the public and filled with educational displays about saving water and using reclaimed water.

The Global Water Center uses 83% less Potable water than conventional buildings by using reclaimed water for flushing toilets, landscape watering, etc..

Reclaimed water is always in these purple painted pipes.

Garden grown with reclaimed water.

Reclaimed water is safe to use on plants you eat.

There are quotes about water all over the walls..

Currently the city of Maricopa’s water comes from groundwater and no recharging is going on. Global Water is putting water back into the ground in other parts of Arizona though. They are working on being able to do the same in Maricopa.

Global Water’s water meters are all wireless. The meters transmit usage back every four hours or so. They can use this data to monitor unusual spikes in people’s water use and notify them if they think they may have a broken pipe.

This water retention pond just out side of the Global Water Center is filled with reclaimed water. All the ponds in Maricopa are filled with reclaimed water. Most if not all of the green areas in developments are also watered with reclaimed water. Global Water says they have saved 1.3 billion gallons of drinking water by reusing it for these purposes. Ideally they’d like to see new developments put in dual pipes so residential customers can use reclaimed water for watering their yards and flushing their toilets.

They have some cool technology to monitor what is going on with the water system. This screen shows some information about water pressure, PH, amount of ground water being pumped, amount of potable water being used and stored in tanks. On Saturday morning everyone in the city of Maricopa were collectively using about 4000 gallons of water per minute.

They also have other systems to let customers see their water use and compare it how much their neighbors are using.

This is where all of Maricopa’s sewage flows to and is treated. There isn’t a whole lot to see because pretty much everything happens in sealed tanks underground. This is very close to residential houses and there is very little smell.

This is where the solid bits of sewer are disposed of. They said baby wipes wreak havoc on the machinery.

Water on its way to be treated.

Maricopa, here is your poop. They squeese all the water out of it, put it in giant trash bags and it currently is sent to the landfill.

This machine removes the water from the waste.

After all the sewage is cleaned up and filtered the final stage is disinfection with ultra violet light.

The reclaimed water is now clear and clean.

The reclaimed water is pumped out of the facility via those large orange pipes and heads off to fill the ponds and water the landscaping around Maricopa.

That’s it! If you are ever in Maricopa I’d recommend taking a trip out to the Global Water Center and learn a bit about sustainable use of water.

Not bad for only being open for a couple weeks! If you haven’t been over there yet now is a great time to check them out.

Here’s a quote from AZ Biodiesel’s owner Dan Rees from local diesel forum sparkfree.com.

You told us…………”appointments are lame”

So………….no more appointments!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is the map to our Gilbert location for you to get fuel:
http://azbiodiesel.com/contact.htm

And just to celebrate……..biodiesel now $2.50 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah!!!!!!!!! lower methanol prices allowed us to lower our price again!!!

Thanks everyone!
Dan

A recent episode of Frontline covering the topic of global climate change had a segment with the Chevy Volt. While Chevy tried to show off the Volt driving up a not so steep looking hill it turned out the car couldn’t make it and stalled out. Hopefully this was just a fluke and not a sign that things aren’t going well with this promising new technology. Check out the video below and see the Volt doing a whole lot of fail.

If don’t know what the Volt is all about it is and all electric car that should be able to go 40 miles on a 8 hour charge and then is backed up by a gasoline engine to produce electricity to extend the car’s range to hundreds of miles.

After a long wait and a couple moves AZ Biodiesel was able to open its doors to the public and start selling biodiesel this past weekend. The biodiesel they produce is a recycled product made from waste vegetable oil collected from restaurants all over Arizona. Currently they are selling the bio for $2.99 a gallon which is great and I’m sure subject to change from day to day. Because they are not a retail gas station you need to contact them to make an appointment to fill up. Follow this link http://azbiodiesel.com/BioDiesel.htm to contact them and be one of first diesel car or truck owners to run 100% local fuel.

On a similar note, Western States Petroleum switched from virgin biodiesel made in Iowa to local recycled biodiesel made from waste vegetable oil. The biodiesel the sell is made by another local company called Amereco. They are currently selling their biodiesel for $3.49 a gallon which is also subject to change. Give them a call to find out the latest price.

Two years ago it was almost unimaginable that we’d have a few sources of completely local fuel made from waste sources. Glad to see these companies pull it off! We look forward to more places to fill up to come! Hopefully we’ll see some of this fuel at retail fuel stations sometime in the future.

Happy Halloween!

Are you looking for the perfect place to celebrate this evening? One of our favorite cafes in town, Inside the Bungalow, just so happens to be having a costume party tonight where 100% of the proceeds go to charity! The event starts at 6pm and runs to 9pm at their enchanting Mesa location at Main and Robson (just East of Country Club). Click here for more info, we hope to see you there!

Click here to read our review of Inside the Bungalow and all about their fabulous food, tea, and efforts to be more “green.”

Still planning on staying home? Take the time to do some green crafting! Here is a fun way to keep yourself occupied and make your own decorations for Halloween without the big ecological impact of thousands of plastic bats and skulls. Make your own sugar skulls!