Here in Normandy we are continuing a historical drought, the worst on record. All is burnt looking, a sharp contrast from the usual year-round green. Even the well and our stream have gone dry, which has never occured according to the oldest locals.
We've been using gray water for the plants all summer. Now as the time to empty the pool is near, I wonder if folks think it would be OK to give plants and young shrubs chlorinated water. Haven't been able to find a definitive source on the web to answer this question. The water will not be very chlorinated. I haven't done a PH, but I've only given it 3 tabs all year.
Seems to me it should be OK, but thought I'd ask the assembled wisdom before hooking up me pump.
Depends on a lot of things. As a kid remember when you would write a message in someone's lawn with a bottle of bleach as a prank? Heavily chlorinated water kills just about anything. Also the byproduct from manufacturing of some chlorine tablets (sodium hypochlorite) is salt, that is why some pools have a salty taste, the elevated salt levels could kill plants with shallower roots. I am not very familiar with chlorine tablets made out of calcium hypochlorite. Hopefully the rain season will soon be here, so you won't have to drain the pool.
I'll refrain from making a joke about how the drought and water rationing won't impact French bathing habits. :)
The volatility of chlorine allows it to evaporate rather quickly; if you stop adding chlorine most of it will have evaporated in less than a week. Chloramine is more stable than chlorine & would take a chloramine-neutralizing additive such as sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate (AmQuel) which more or less converts chloramine to ammonia which in such delute measures plants easily turn into nutrients.
Evaporated chlorine & chlorine/chloramine neutralizers do leave salts in the water that with repeated use can build up in the soil & harm salt-sensitive plants like rhododendrons & with build-up over time afflict all plant life. It PROBABLY won't build up to a toxic level from temporary use, but the greywater you're using is also contaminated with salt (as much or more than would be in a pool if the greywater includes recycled laundryroom water) plus many people with wells use water softeners which add salt even to the water fresh from the well. So you may already be pushing the salt content of the soil to the maximum the plants can tolerate. If you've done your greywater research you may already know how to deal with the issue of accumulating salts which applies to the pool too even though it looks so much cleaner.
If you fertilize regularly, stop doing that while contaminated water is being used, as garden chemicals also add to the salt load & at some point just about everything in the garden will show signs of salt buildup. If you have a period each year of good rainfall it should wash these salts through the soil so that by the following drought season it will be somewhat safe to use greywater & pool water again.
There is a way to purify chemically treated pool water just about completely. A garbage can of pea-gravel & crushed lava-rock with a little swamp-mud mixed in as a bacterial "starter" can have water forced through it with a pump. The garbage-can of this filtering medium should be inside the pool & water should be pumped through it as vigorously as possible. The bacteria will build up in the gravel & will begin converting the contaminants into nitrates they can feed on as they multiply. It's essentially acting like an aquarium undergravel filter. The chlorine does have to be neutralized beforehand or it will kill the bacteria without which no biological filtration will occur.
Even without such effort though, with the chlorine evaporated or the chloramine chemically neutralized, the salt load will probably be only as bad as the garden is already experiencing from the greywater. And if you already have proper greywater filtration in place you might be able to run the pool water through that, but there'll always be salts remaining & over time this CAN become a burden.
Should be OK. Our swim club pumps out into marshy area and there's plenty of vegetation there. There's probably enough stuff in the soil to neutralize any chlorine. Also pool pH, I think should be about 6.4, which is also OK. Frank
Ascorbic acid will solve the chlorine problem....but remember many of us with municipal irrigation systems have as much chlorine as a pool with negligible effects,,,,
Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets. To plant a pine, one need only own a shovel.
I live in a trailer park and every fall when they drain the pool, I attach my garden hoses to the pump and the water goes out to my garden, I get something like 50,000 gal's of water for my canna and they just love all the water.
During Clinton's first year in office somebody did that very thing on the white house front lawn except they wrote "FUCK YOU BILL".
Infuriated about it, Slick Willy ordered the FBI to investigate. They came back a day or so later and told Clintion that they analyzed the piss and found it to be Al Gore's. Clinton leaned back in his chair in disbelief. The FBI then advised him of one more thing.
They said "We analyzed the handwriting also. It was Hillary's."
] Ascorbic acid will solve the chlorine problem....but remember many of ] us with municipal irrigation systems have as much chlorine as a pool ] with negligible effects,,,, ]
OK, thanks all for the advice. I don't think I have a problem with salt buildup, and I don't fertilize much anyway. So I'll go ahead and use the water.
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