EPIC Green Solutions, which specialises in providing environmentally sustainable water solutions, holds the world-wide rights to the EPIC (Environmental Passive Integrated Chamber) system from the US-based Rehbein Environmental Solutions. The company claims that the subsurface EPIC system provides 50% to 80% water savings compared to conventional irrigation systems with the added benefit of combining drainage, irrigation, filtration and a water reservoir in a single system. Jonas Sipaila, Director of Innovation at EPIC Green Solutions (and also the patent holder for the EPIC system) spoke to Anoop K Menon on why EPIC could be an ideal solution to the region’s water woes.
In the mid-80s, Jonas Sipaila, Director of Innovation, EPIC Green Solutions was managing the environmental health divisions of two upstate New York counties. The conventional septic systems in some areas had started to fail because the ground was no longer absorbing the water. Hard pressed to find a way to make them work, Sipaila developed an unconventional solution, which relied on the upward motion of water into the biology (trees, grass and shrubs) instead of the downward motion of water into the ground. The solution took the shape of the subsurface Environmental Passive Integrated Chamber (or EPIC) water management system, which uses capillary physics and gravity to deliver water and nutrients to plants through an interconnected series of chambers and pans after being filtered through sand.
But why sand?
“Sand is the only media that can move water from the bottom up into the strata,” explained Sipaila. “Gravel doesn’t do it, while clay is a poor substitute. Also, the sand medium enables even moisture distribution and high oxygen content for the plants’ root system.”
The EPIC system is composed of layers. The bottom layer is an EPDM rubber liner, which prevents water loss to the ground. The second layer (above EPDM and below the sand layer) is the core EPIC system, made up of interconnected chambers that control water movement in horizontal or lateral directions and creates an underground water table. “When you put any conventional pipe in a sand profile, it is either going to fill up or plug on the outside. The chamber prevents clogging while controlling the water movement in the sand profile,” said Sipaila.
The EPIC system, he claimed, can save 50% – 80% of water compared to conventional irrigation systems and is 100% efficient. “The only water you are losing is what the plant needs,” explained Sipaila. “The EPDM liner prevents water leakage into the ground while the system’s subsurface nature ensures there is no spray loss through evaporation, which is the case with conventional sprinklers.”
EPIC also facilitates re-circulation of the irrigation water, which helps avoid water waste. “If you are 100% efficient, that’s as good as it gets. I cannot further reduce the water in a system, including ours, anymore without affecting the plants,” said Sipaila.
Jonas Sipaila, Director of Innovation, Epic Green Solutions
The system performs as efficiently with treated effluent and sea water as it does with storm water and fresh water. “The irony of our culture is that we purify water to drinking water standards and then re-contaminate it with fertilisers so that plants can grow,” said Sipaila, while highlighting the treated effluent aspect. He felt that reclaimed water should be simply regarded “as partially fertilised water that plants need. If you can distribute (reclaimed) water without relying on pressure so that the bacteria and other stuff don’t surface, you really have a resource that is valuable and not a waste product.”
First installation
The first commercial installation of an EPIC system was carried out in the US in 1999; today, there are over 100 installations of the system in applications as varied as backyard landscaping to greening of parking areas to irrigation of large athletic fields. Sipaila noted that while costs vary depending on the application, the life cycle cost of the system is minimal. “We have simply re-arranged how water moves in the system underground,” he explained. “The sand virtually lasts forever, there are no moving parts to wear out, the piping is not pressurised, and being sub-surface, UV degradation is not an issue. Moreover, virtually all the components can be taken out and re-used elsewhere, so I am not wasting anything either.”
Sipaila pointed out that in the US, some projects were found to be less expensive with EPIC than with traditional systems because of the changes in infrastructure. For example, storm water management in wet climates require drainage systems, catchment basins, land for storm water retention. “All that goes away because the EPIC system itself starts to capture rainwater, it becomes part of your infrastructure. Moreover, the system can be adapted to existing drainage or storm water networks,” he said.
Sipaila also claimed that landscape irrigation can be made self-sustainable by simply adjusting the EPIC system to that area’s storm climate. “By proper planning, you can build subdivisions where the irrigation water is simply storm water. You can collect, filter, store the water underground, and re-use it when needed. For a community, then, public water supply is needed only for domestic use,” he explained.
In the US, landscape irrigation accounts for 2/3rds of the total water consumption. “When you look at the big picture of community planning in the US, you see an extensive hardscape – roadways, parking lots, roof areas, industrial sites – which can be used to collect run offs for re-use. If you can reduce 2/3rds of water use, it is a big deal,” said Sipaila.
One of the biggest implementations of the EPIC system in the US is at the Cambria Elementary School on the California Coast. The system was installed under 130,000 sq. ft. of turf in six strategic areas across the 12 acre campus, which was designed to collect all available storm water and hardscape runoff. The EPIC system’s storage capacity now provides the school with a source of free irrigation water during the long and dry summer months by simply harvesting the rainfall during the two-month wet season. In some parts of coastal California, EPIC systems are being put to more specialised applications like preventing cliff erosion by controlling the flow of rainwater off the cliffs.
Relevance to the Middle East
But how relevant is the storm water aspect of the EPIC system in the UAE, which has an average rainfall of approximately three inches? Sipaila believes that large industrial buildings in the country can make their footprint self-sustainable by capturing, storing and re-using the rain water for irrigation. Even if the storm water aspect isn’t convincing enough, there is the much bigger issue of water shortage to consider. He continued, “If you have limited supply and you are able to reduce your water consumption by half, you can extend the time factor before the water runs out to twice as long. There are also water movement costs associated with drawing water up from underground wells compared to getting it nearer to the surface.”
Elaborating further on the storm water aspect, he said: “Climate is kind of becoming irrelevant ……. you have a three inch rainfall event, but only 10% of your surface is irrigated with the rest serving as ‘collection’ for the run-off, you are really working in a 30 inch climate as far as that footprint is concerned. So if your question is: do I have enough water in rain events? The answer is yes, you do, as long as you collect the water and not waste it.”
The EPIC system can also work with grey water like, for example, shower water in hotels. Sipaila said, “Hotels have lots of shower water, but minimal landscape area. I can mix and blend shower water or clean water or wastewater from ice machines and direct that water to my landscaping. Why send that water to the sewage treatment plant and pump it back as re-claimed water?”
The EPIC System has also facilitated the direct use of seawater for irrigation. In 2007, for a ground cover irrigation project in Samaliya Island in Abu Dhabi, the system was fed directly with seawater. “We simply took water from the sea, made it flow through EPIC and returned it back to the sea” said Sipaila.
Highlighting the unique advantage of the EPIC system, he pointed out when salt tolerant plants are watered by spray irrigation, over time, the soil’s salt content increases because the water evaporates. This doesn’t happen in the EPIC system because the salt crystals tend to re-dissolve in the incoming water. While salt water may come in at five per cent and leave at 5.1%, the growing profile benefits from stability without salt build up. “For seawater applications, we just change the plant palette. There are over 70 species of salt tolerant plants including flowering shrubs that can be irrigated with seawater,” he said.
Before embarking on an installation, EPIC Green Solutions carries out climate modelling of the area and graphs out, on a monthly basis, the rain events and temperatures to understand aspects like the ET (evapotranspiration) rate for the plants and the amount of rain that can be captured. Sipaila said, “In wetter climates, the EPIC system provides self sustainability automatically because we capture the rain, hold it, re-use it for the full length of the year. In drier climates like the UAE, you want to capture when you get it, keep it in storage or use other water sources to maintain the sustainability.”
The water use efficiency of the EPIC system is also being adapted for agriculture. While initial projects for agricultural irrigation were more or less small scale initiatives, the system’s modular aspect means it can be scaled up into larger commercial installations in green houses and open fields.
Sipaila pointed out that the advantage of using EPIC for agricultural irrigation in the Middle East is quite straightforward. He said, “Plant biology, irrespective of species, is driven by the same basics of air, water and nutrients. We have the sand, we have little water and by combining both EPIC, we can make agriculture very efficient. EPIC controls your water movement more efficiently, adjusting your nutrients…. It doesn’t matter to the system whether you grow carrots, or cabbages or grass.”
The man behind EPIC will settle for nothing short of changing the prevalent philosophy in the region, which sees little value in storm events and views wastewater as ‘waste’ (though that may be poised for a change). “We spend Dh10 for a bottle of water. But three inches of rain over a flat area is also a lot of money, especially if you start thinking of the cost of water. I have to ask myself, if this is a valuable resource, why am I wasting it? Why am I sending it down systems that treat and dispose it or pump it back for re-use? ”
