I KNOW OF TWO HISTORIC HOMES AND, OF COURSE, the Commanding Officer’s Quarters in Benicia that have or once had cisterns to capture and store water. And I know that the owners of one of the homes converted their old cistern into a wine cellar. There must be more historic homes that still have cisterns.

Thomas Jefferson had four cisterns at Monticello to supplement the irregular ground water wells. He experimented for years to find the right waterproof plaster to line the interior of his brick cisterns. On the Monticello website there are several letters Jefferson wrote about his work on, and concerns about, his cisterns.

In October 1818 he wrote a letter asking William Coffee to see if there was enough plaster material called “Terras” in New York (shipped from Amsterdam or Hamburg):

“My cisterns have about 1280. square feet of surface, and, for a coat of half an inch thickness, would require 40. bushels either of that material alone, or of the mixed material, whatever that is, and so more or less in proportion as the coat should be thicker or thinner. Will you be so good as to inform me whether the material is to be had in N(ew) York and at what price? How thick a lining is found sufficient for the inside of a Cistern? And any details of manipulation which you may be so kind as to collect for me.”

Cisterns, it is said, are different from wells, as they have waterproof linings. The word “cistern” comes from the Latin cisterna or cista, meaning box. According to my not very deep Wikipedia research, lined cisterns go back to the Neolithic age and began to be common features by 4 BCE.

What gets me thinking about cisterns as I write on a beautifully rainy Sunday morning is the ability to capture some of this glorious rain for use in our hot, dry spring, summer and fall. I have considered cistern and rainwater storage for my home and I finally decided to look at my water usage to see how much I would have to capture for watering my yard. The city of Benicia keeps excellent records of usage and billing, and it is very simple to check out your personal information by setting up an online account.

The city tracks usage by cubic feet of water consumed. A cubic foot equals 7.48 gallons of water. I noted that I used 69 cubic feet of water in the last three billing dates of 2013. There’s a clear graph of water usage and a chart of consumption by billing date for my account. Sixty-nine cubic feet of water equals 516.12 gallons, which comes out to about 6 gallons a day. That seemed like a lot of water to me, but I went to the U.S. Geological Survey website and found the average daily per capita use of water in the U.S. is between 80 and 100 gallons.

I was reminded that as a member of the Community Sustainability Commission I had actually reviewed our 2010 Urban Water Management Survey Plan. I went back to that document and realized that we have some (a lot!) of work to do here, as our average daily per capita consumption in 2010 was around 175 gallons!

Wow — on the one hand I could relax about my water conservation, but realistically I know that water is a precious resource.

“Home” is a beautiful movie on Youtube that among much more information describes the millennia-long process involved in the realization of water. My response, then, is how can I use less water or leverage rainwater captured during the rainy season for use in watering my plants and garden in the dry months?

Rain barrels and water storage

Years ago, I thought rain barrels would be a great solution. I have three 60-gallon barrels that fill in a couple of minutes from a steady downpour. I’ve learned that 1 inch of rain falling on 1 square foot of roof catches 0.623 gallons of rainwater.

So, a rough calculation of my 1,200-square-foot roof x 0.623 gallons = 747. 6 gallons collected for each inch of rainfall. That amount, 747.6 gallons, is less than I’ve been using to water my yard for an entire year!

There’s a lot to learn about water storage from rain capture, container placement, capacity, safety, sediment, algae and more — but on a rainy day where I might have captured all the water I need for the coming dry months, I wish I had done my research earlier and taken action sooner.

If you attended the previous two CleanTech Expos (2012 and 2013), you might have stopped by the Vorsana/BioClean booth and heard Donna Hamer’s presentation on their innovative water cleansing system. It’s good to know there are creative people pursuing ways of conserving water.

Community Choice

On March 3, there will be an informational panel of experts talking about clean energy and what Community Choice Aggregation means to a community looking for clean energy from renewable energy sources.

The Community Sustainability Commission, as part of their public education and outreach efforts, is sponsoring this event to learn more about this clean energy potential, along with the pros and cons for consideration in Benicia. The panel discussion will begin at 6 p.m. in the Benicia Community Center, 370 East L St.

Learn more

• City of Benicia Utility Bills: https://ubills.ci.benicia.ca.us/login.asp

• City of Benicia Urban Water Management Plan: go to ci.benicia.ca.us and search for Benicia_UWMP_Final_Report_June2011.pdf

• Donna Hamer’s presentation about BioClean: youtube.com/watch?v=jxqFxSS0R9w&feature=share&list=PL4CEB0F984F43D37D&index=11

• “Home”: youtu.be/jqxENMKaeCU

• Old House Web: oldhouseweb.com/blog/cisterns-historic-water-convservation/ (note: the typo is correct in the url address — the link does end in “convservation/”)

• Thomas Jefferson’s Cisterns: monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/cisterns

Constance Beutel is a member of Benicia’s Community Sustainability Commission. She is a university professor and videographer and holds a doctorate from the University of San Francisco.