INTENT
The intent of this Imperative is for project water use and release to work in harmony with the natural water flows of the site and its surroundings.
REQUIREMENTS
All projects must supply one hundred percent of the project’s water needs through captured precipitation or other natural closed-loop water systems, and/or through recycling used project water, and all water must be purified as needed without the use of chemicals. No potable water may be used for non-potable uses.
All projects must address all grey and black water through on-site treatment and management through reuse, a closed loop system, or infiltration. Projects that are not able to treat and manage on site may use handprinting within their watershed and community.
Scale Jumping strategies are allowed with some limitations. For example, connecting to a community or municipal facility is allowed only if the facility treats waste to tertiary levels, reuses or infiltrates all water in balance with the watershed, and has a biologically based treatment process with no chemicals. For all Scale Jumping, pump energy must be accounted for through renewable energy sources.
All projects must incorporate a resilience strategy to provide drinking water for up to a week for all regular building occupants through water storage on site.
CHANGES FROM LBC 3.1 TO 4.0
This Imperative has been modified to include more compliance pathways for meeting Net Positive Water. These changes acknowledge that the sometimes “what good looks like” for sustainable and equitable water systems doesn’t always occur at the project scale. In particular, three significant changes have been made.
- New compliance pathways have been incorporated, including handprinting, for addressing the impacts of managing and treating greywater and black water (domestic sewage).
- Handprinting has been added as a compliance pathway for affordable housing projects to meet their water needs.
- Projects are required to provide drinking water during emergencies to increase project resiliency.
