The WMG Water Harvesting Certification program provides the highest quality and greatest depth of training in integrative water harvesting offered in the nation. We are opening four of the lectures from our upcoming May Certification course in Tucson to the public.

This is ideal for people interested in learning more about Water harvesting but not quite ready to commit to our full nine-day Water Harvesting Certification The presenters are dynamic educators and experts in their field.

This lecture series will introduce the concepts of integrated water-harvesting design in an informative and accessible way, inspiring you to make the most of your water resources at home.

Cost to attend, per lecture: $25 a session.

The four-session series, to be held in Tucson, includes:

Friday 5/4: Water Harvesting Earthworks, 10 am — noon, with James DeRoussel
Learn design and application of basins, berms, swales, terraces, and french drains. This lecture covers lot-scale to watershed scale practices with information on soils, landscape materials, and integration with plants. Click here to register.

Saturday 5/5: Water Harvesting for Food Production, 3 – 5 pm, with Brad Lancaster 
Brad’s lecture covers a diverse range of agricultural applications from backyard to large-scale systems, showing how rain and greywater can enhance food production while conserving water. Click here to register.

Monday 5/7: Cisterns, 1 – 3 pm, with Mark Ragel, owner of Water Harvesting International
Comprehensive overview of cistern systems from guttering, filtration, storage, and distribution, including best management practices and cistern types for different applications. Click here to register.

Monday 5/7: Greywater Systems, 3 – 5 pm, with Brad Lancaster 
Greywater systems harvest water from laundry machines, bathroom sink and showers, and AC condensate. Learn how to reuse greywater in your yard, with a focus on gravity-fed systems, plumbing considerations, and appropriate uses. Click here to register.

Pre-registration and pre-payment is required for each session.

Lectures will be held at Saint Mark’s Presbyterian Church, 3809 East 3rd Street, Tucson

Please contact Rhiwena Slack at rslack@watershedmg.org or at 520-396-3266 if you have questions.

May 1, 2012 is the Priority Application deadline for the Sustainable Vocations program at Quail Springs.

More information available here.

Join us May 4-6 for an exciting opportunity in San Diego’s back country town of Ramona for a unique hands-on workshop to learn how to transform a house into a sustainable oasis by tapping into rainwater and greywater.

This holistic water harvesting training course will teach people the fundamentals of integrated water design through hands-on activity. Over 3 days, participants will design and install:

• A “Laundry to Landscape” greywater system
• Two branched-drain greywater systems from two bathrooms
• A 2,500 gallon rainwater harvesting cistern and plan for future expansion
• A wide range of passive water-harvesting earthworks

All of these water harvesting projects will be integrated to provide an edible landscape that works in harmony with both the natural ecology and the home itself.

Through this training, participants will learn:

• Best Management Practices for rainwater and greywater harvesting
• Legal regulations and permitting
• Best plumbing practices
• Edible landscape integration
• Tricks and tools of the trade

This course is for anyone interested in learning how to design water harvesting features into their own landscapes and is ideal for homeowners, contractors, architects, designers, and city and county regulators. No prior experience is necessary. All participants will receive a certificate of completion. If you have been waiting for one course that will give you an overview of how to install your own legal rainwater harvesting and greywater systems then this is the course for you. By the end of the three days you should have the understanding and confidence to begin to create your own sustainable oasis!

Course Tuition: We are offering a range of weekend opportunities. Due to the more distant location in the county participants can choose to stay on the property for the entire weekend or commute to the site location on a daily basis.

Residential Weekend Experience: Stay on site all weekend if you don’t want to commute. Camp in your own tent or share some dorm style indoor space in the house or trailer. Prices include 3 meals a day, nightly campfire and music, and possible movie.
Residential (Tent): $350
Residential (Shared Indoor Dorm Space): $400

Commuter Weekend: If you live nearby or choose to stay at a local hotel and commute daily, we will serve you lunch and snacks.
Commuter: $300

Single Day: If you can just make the class for a day, no problem. We are offering those who wish to take a single day the opportunity to do so. Includes a healthy lunch and snacks.
Single Day Tuition: $150

This course will pay for itself and then some with the amount of information each person will learn. Learn how to do things right the first time.

For course schedule, bios of the instructors, to contact the instructors, or register for the workshop, visit:
www.edenonearthlandscaping.com/water-harvesting-intensive

Green Infrastructure (GI) is a strategy a growing number of communities are using to manage stormwater more sustainably, while using that water to irrigate vegetation that provides multiple benefits such as capturing, cleaning, and infiltrating stormwater; creating wildlife habitat; shading and cooling streets and buildings; and calming traffic. WMG has been working with community members to install neighborhood-level GI projects in Tucson since 2008. Now WMG is offering an in-depth professional training covering the “how to” of organization and design for community-led GI installations.

Introductory webinar: March 20th, 3-5pm (PDT)
Hands on training: March 29-31, 2012, Tucson, Arizona

Application. Please fill out an application to apply or to hold a place in this course: available in PDF or Word and submit to rslack@watershedmg.org by March 16, 2012.

Instructors. James MacAdam, WMG Green Streets/Green Neighborhoods Program Manager, Catlow Shipek, WMG Senior Program Manager, James DeRoussel, RLA, also with WMG, will lead this hands-on technical training in community-based green infrastructure best practices.

Training Curriculum. The focus of this technical training will be on retrofitting and redevelopment. Learning will be achieved through a blend of classroom lectures, site assessments, design exercises, and a hands on workshop. This training draws on WMG’s experience working with neighborhoods and local governments to install GI in the Southwest. While WMG’s focus is on southwestern neighborhoods the intent is for the knowledge gained in this training to be transferable to other regions.

The training will cover:

• GI Integrated design

• Technical application of GI in a variety of urban environments

• Maintenance and problem solving

• Community engagement

• Policy & permitting

• Tools for overcoming municipal concerns

WMG’s goal is to transfer this advanced technical knowledge to professionals, educators, and community activists who will implement these practices in their work and teach others. This course may be particularly appropriate for landscape architects, architects, permaculture designers, developers, engineers, policy makers, restoration ecologists and community activists.

Training Schedule. ?An introductory webinar, which is part of the course, is scheduled for Tuesday, March 20th, 3pm (PDT). The technical training will follow, upon the conclusion of Arid LID 2012 conference on Green Infrastructure and Low Impact Development in Arid Environments, from 2 pm on Thursday, March 29th, to Saturday, March 31st, at 5pm.

Food. Snacks, water and lunch are included in the course fee.

Fees. $500. Discounts of $50 are available to alumni of previous WMG trainings and AridLID 2012 conference participants.

Scholarships. WMG offers a limited number of scholarships of $50 to $200 to help defray the cost of the course. To be considered for a scholarship, please include a description of your financial need where directed on the application. We will review your needs and let you know if your request has been successful. For more information email Rhiwena Slack at rslack@watershedmg.org or call 520-396-3266.

To apply for the course or to hold a place in this course, please fill out the Technical Training application form available in PDF or Word, and submit to rslack@watershedmg.org.

Rockworks & Earthworks: Applied Watershed Restoration
Turning landscape water problems into solutions…

Hosted by: VERGE Permaculture, a Calgary-based company that specializes in a systems design approach to sustainable human habitat and a focus on interconnected elements: low energy buildings, water management, waste re-use, renewable energy & food production systems.

VERGE is passionate about helping Canadians regenerate degraded landscapes, build topsoil and improve our surrounding ecologies so both ours and future generations can lead healthy lives and benefit from natural resources.

FMI: www.vergepermaculture.ca/content/rockworks-earthworks-applied-watershed-restoration

Course details and registration information to be posted at www.quailsprings.org/events.

Double Circle Ranch is both a working cattle ranch and a model for conservation and environmental stewardship. Bring your camping gear and join us for this free weekend funded by the Arizona Water Protection Fund Commission. Help us slow soil loss and improve water quality in Eagle Creek while learning skills to benefit your own land.

Dates: April 20-22, 2012
Location: Double Circle Ranch, near Clifton, AZ
Cost: Free
RSVP ASAP

Instructor: Craig Sponholtz earned an M.A. in Agro-Ecological Restoration from Prescott College and studied Permaculture at Bill Mollison’s Tagari Farm in Australia. He spent a decade with the U.S. Forest Service in New Mexico and Arizona working in Wildland Fire Management and Fire Use. Craig has had extensive training and hands-on experience in passive water harvesting, erosion control and stream restoration that is well complimented by a background in fine art sculpture and ceramics. Craig founded Dryland Solutions in 2003 and continues to design and implement watershed restoration projects throughout the Southwest. He is an expert heavy equipment operator specializing in low impact techniques and artistic in-stream boulder masonry. Craig teaches a wide variety of watershed restoration techniques that foster beneficial relationships between people and the watersheds they live in.

Food and land for camping are provided. Bring your own gear. For more information, including how to register, download the Erosion Control Workshop Flyer April 2012.

Walk the Watershed

Date: Saturday, February 18, 2012
Time: 1 to 4 p.m. (Doors open at 12:30 pm)

Location: Northland Pioneer College
Learning Center (Room 101)
1611 South Main Street
Snowflake, AZ 85937

Cost: Free

This is a chance to meet people who are changing the world for GOOD with solar! Come share your ideas, meet new people, network and enjoy kindred spirits.

The event is free, but the organizers would appreciate your registering at their website to help them plan. And they’d love it if you could pass this invitation on to others who might be interested!