A Future For Household Cisterns

Ensuring a steady supply of fresh drinking water has been a problem facing humanity for all of it's history. For most of that history, the use of cisterns has been a major method for storing fresh water.

In the United States, family cisterns were once found at many homesteads, farms and small towns across the country. I first really became aware of cisterns while visiting the village of Mendicino, CA, where many of the old Victorian houses still have and use cisterns as their primary source of household drinking water.

The only cistern I'm aware of in my community is the cistern shown above, located at Caldwell Toyota. It is an 8600 gallon cistern which collects rain water from the roof of the building, and is used by the business for landscape irrigation, rather than using treated city water.

This year, the State of California is reporting that it is projecting that it will only be able to deliver just fifteen percent of the fresh water needed by California towns and farms, due to drought conditions and reduced snow accumulations in the mountains.

According to the Sacramento Bee, California is calling for conservation efforts on the parts of homeowners in order to deal with the crisis.

Snowmelt stored in California reservoirs is at its lowest level in 14 years.

"In fact, the entire state is wrestling with very serious drought conditions," said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. "Wherever you live in California, start conserving water because you are going to be affected if drought conditions persist."

In the United States we have built up very centralized and connected water systems, with many states being dependent up on rivers which are increasingly drying up.

It seems to me that as pressure on fresh water supplies gets more prouounced, one solution many homeowners, even those in metropolitan areas, may turn to, are household cisterns which harvest rain water from roofs, and store it for use either as a fresh drinking water source, or to augment irrigation for gardens and landscaping.