The Greywater Corps Story (So Far)

12 years ago, having just bought a house in the Glassell Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, I was laid off from my job as an architect. During this period of introspection I tore up my front lawn and planted a lot of fruit trees with my 4-year-old son: peaches, lemons, avocados, apples, loquats, kumquats, tangerines, ruby-red grapefruits…

GWC Base fruit trees before and after 12 years of greywater irrigation.

Niko in the early days of GWC.

We would work in the garden, watering our trees and getting muddy, and then I’d give my son a bath, and when we pulled the plug I’d watch 50 gallons of perfectly usable water swirl down the drain, never to be seen again.

It turns out that LA’s tap water comes from far away, pumped across deserts and over mountains - and on the downstream side there’s an equally Byzantine treatment system, ultimately dumping out to the Santa Monica bay. I had been watering my garden with drinking water while simultaneously sending perfectly good irrigation water down the drain.

Across deserts, over mountains.

I started rigging up systems at my house to recapture this resource and use it in my garden, and I watched my fruit trees explode! Micronutrients in greywater that cause problems in the ocean are perfect fertilizers. I learned everything I could about greywater, which was illegal when I started. I didn’t care - this seemed like a fantastic idea and I loved the work and the community. I printed postcards: “Professional installation of greywater irrigation systems” and put them out at coffeeshops and garden stores, and started to get a few calls.

“Professional installation of greywater irrigation systems”

Over time I’ve watched as greywater became more universally accepted. It’s now legal and even has its own chapter in the CA Plumbing Code.

600 systems and counting.

Now I run one of the few companies in the world dedicated to greywater irrigation and rainwater harvesting systems. As the west coast heads into a state of permanent drought people are looking for solutions. There’s not much you can do about the weather, but you CAN save water by using it twice - once in the home and a second time in the landscape. The phone is ringing off the hook. We currently have a staff of 7 installers, designing and implementing these systems all over LA County - around 600 so far and counting.

The Greywater Corps Crew, October 2021.