1.9 Million Marylanders Told to Limit Flushing After Water Plant Outage

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The Ready Brief #212

Practical preparedness for uncertain times

A washing machine, a shower and a bathroom sink all send water down the drain that is fine for a garden but not for drinking. When supply is restricted, that water is a second source for non-drinking jobs. On Sept. 29, a power failure at one Maryland plant led WSSC Water to ask 1.9 million customers to use water only when essential. Today's issue covers how a basic laundry-to-landscape greywater setup works and how to check whether it is legal where you live.

Greywater Systems and Water Reuse

EPA says the average American family uses more than 300 gallons of water a day at home, about 70 percent of it indoors. Some of that, the water from showers, bathroom sinks and washing machines, is greywater. It is not clean enough to drink, but it is fine for watering a garden or fruit trees, and in some systems for flushing toilets.

In normal times, reusing greywater lowers a water bill and takes pressure off municipal systems. When supply is restricted, as it was for 1.9 million WSSC Water customers in Maryland earlier this week, it gives you another source for the non-drinking jobs.

The simplest greywater system is a laundry-to-landscape setup. Your washing machine has a pump that pushes water out through a drain hose. Instead of routing that hose to the sewer, you route it to your yard through a series of distribution lines. No storage tank. No filter. The water goes directly to plants below the soil surface using mulch basins. Some states allow this type of system without a permit because the water is distributed immediately and never stored.

Before you set anything up, check local rules, because they differ by state and sometimes by city. Colorado passed a law in 2024 that allows greywater systems by default, yet Colorado Springs opted out and bans residential reuse, and a local installer filed suit over it (Colorado Public Radio, May 2026). Your county health department's website is usually the fastest place to find out.

The key rules for safe greywater use are straightforward. Never store greywater for more than 24 hours. Bacteria multiply quickly. Never use greywater from kitchen sinks (too much grease and food waste) or toilets (that's blackwater, a completely different category). Avoid greywater from loads that used bleach or borax-heavy detergents. Use plant-friendly soaps, the kind labeled "biodegradable" or "greywater safe."

Don't spray greywater on leaves or edible parts of plants. Apply it to the soil at the root zone, ideally beneath a layer of mulch. This prevents contact with people and pets and lets the soil biology break down any remaining contaminants naturally.

For a more advanced setup, a branched drain system uses gravity to distribute shower and sink water through a series of splitting valves that divide the flow among multiple planting areas. No pump, no electricity, minimal maintenance. It requires some initial plumbing work but runs passively once installed.

Cost is modest for a laundry-only setup: a diverter valve of about $55, plus hose or pipe and mulch for the planting basins. Branched drains for showers and sinks involve more plumbing work, so get a local quote.

From a preparedness standpoint, greywater knowledge matters even if you never install a permanent system. During an extended water outage, knowing how to safely capture and reuse wash water for flushing and irrigation keeps your household functional much longer than relying solely on stored water.

Capture one load of laundry water.

Run your washing machine's drain hose into a five-gallon bucket for one cycle (skip the bleach load) and use the water on outdoor, non-edible plants within 24 hours. Note how many buckets it fills. That number tells you what a laundry-to-landscape system could supply.

Three Boil-Water Advisories in 11 Days, Three Different Causes

Bloomington Utilities issued a countywide advisory for Monroe County, Indiana, on Sept. 20 after storm-related power outages cut production at its treatment plant. Shreveport, Louisiana, issued a precautionary advisory on Sept. 26 after dry soil shifted and caused multiple main breaks, then lifted it Sept. 28. On Sept. 30, the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority told about 200 Wilmington-area customers to boil water after a broken main. Low pressure can let bacteria into the pipes, which is why utilities issue these as a precaution. This is a sample of local notices, not a national count. Ready.gov recommends storing at least one gallon per person per day for several days (Ready.gov).

Source: The Bloomingtonian, KSLA, WECT

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Art Ludwig runs Oasis Design and wrote Create an Oasis with Greywater, which Oasis Design says covers how to choose, build and use 17 types of greywater systems. It includes branched drains, the gravity-fed shower and sink setup described above. The paperback is about $37.

The takeaway: start with the simplest system your local code allows, and plan it around gravity and a diverter valve so the household can switch back to the sewer whenever it needs to. Diverter valves are required by most greywater codes, according to Oasis Design.

Source: Oasis Design

Power Failure at One Plant Puts 1.9 Million Maryland Water Customers on Use Limits

On Tuesday, Sept. 29, WSSC Water asked about 1.9 million customers in Montgomery and Prince George's counties to use water only when essential after the Potomac Water Filtration Plant lost power. The plant serves roughly 70 to 75 percent of the utility's customers. WSSC said one of the plant's two electrical feeds was offline for Pepco maintenance when the other failed that morning, and that there were no signs of a cyberattack. Customers were asked to skip lawn irrigation, limit toilet flushing and hold off on laundry and dishwashers. There was no boil water advisory. WSSC lifted the request at 5 p.m. Sept. 30, about 36 hours after the outage began, once storage rebuilt. When one plant serves most of a region, one electrical failure can reach every household at once.

Source: WSSC Water, The MoCo Show, WTOP

AIGO 1-Inch 3-Way (L-Port) Forged Brass Ball Valve

This is a three-way valve that lets you switch your washing machine's drain between the sewer line and an outdoor hose: one position for normal drainage, the other for greywater. Oasis Design recommends a 1-inch threaded 3-way L-port brass ball valve for laundry-only systems, with the inlet on the leg of the tee. This one matches that description.

It is about $54 on Amazon, plus fittings and hose for the outdoor side. Check your local greywater rules first, since many codes require a diverter valve and some places do not allow reuse at all.

Budget alternative: Just run the drain hose out a window into a bucket when you want to capture water. Zero cost, slightly less convenient.

Overrated: Complex greywater filtration systems for residential use. For garden irrigation, you don't need a filter. The soil is the filter. Keep it simple.

Underrated: Biodegradable laundry detergent. Switching to plant-friendly soap is one of the simplest steps toward safe greywater reuse.

CERT training. What Community Emergency Response Team courses teach, what they don't, and why the often-free training might be one of the best preparedness investments you can make.

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PS: If greywater reuse is restricted where you live, check the rules on rainwater harvesting, which some places treat differently. Same principle, different source.