Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster

25th Annual Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Food Forest Planting – Tucson, AZ
2021-04-24 08:00 - 11:00 (America/Phoenix)
Saturday, April 24, 2021 @ 8:00 am – 11:00 am
Free

This planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers is occurring in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood, but the planting event is open to anyone from any neighborhood, and is a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere.

Neighborhood volunteers planting street-side water-harvesting basin.
Photo: Brad Lancaster

Date: Saturday, April 24, 2021.
The stormwater eddy basins (each having over 4,500-gallon annual capacity) were just completed – so now we can plant. We plant the rain before we plant the plants!
Time: 8:00 am for a planting demonstration, then keep going to various parts of the neighborhood. We start early to beat the heat. The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch.
End time of 11am is approximate.
Meeting spot: 902 N. 10th Ave, Tucson AZ 85705 (south of property, on 2nd Street)
Once we finish planting there, we’ll move to the following locations in Dunbar/Spring:
836 N. 10th Ave
123 W. 4th Street
Then at 8am on Sunday, April 25 we’ll do another planting in West University Neighborhood.
Come join us in planting native shade trees and understory vegetation within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way. The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners. Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF. This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we also reduce water consumption (by reducing our use of drinking water from the municipal supply) and we reduce downstream flooding. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,600 trees being planted in our neighborhood, hundreds of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!

What to bring: WEAR A MASK, work clothes, sun hat, gloves, snacks, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

Bonus: We’ll also help you identify desired native wildflowers to encourage – and pesky invasive weeds to pull – so next year we have more wildflowers and fewer weeds.

Planting native wildflower seed around street-side water-harvesting basin.
Photo: Brad Lancaster

And you can purchase the new, full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster.

Info that follows just gives you more info on the program that created the basins we’ll be planting, to inspire you to sign up for next year’s rain planting or to organize one in other neighborhoods…

Water-Harvesting-Basin-Creation Service:
This year we are working with licensed contractors (John Litzel of Little John Excavating and Jeff Rhody of Dryland Design) to:
• Dig the basin(s) [average size is 5-8 feet long x 5 feet wide x 1 foot deep] with a backhoe
• Remove excavated soil with backhoe and dump truck
• Deliver and hand-set local Catalina granite rock to stabilize the basin banks and planting terraces.
• Drill core holes or curb cuts in the street curb to direct street runoff into the street-side basin for a lifetime of free stormwater irrigation and flood control
• Handle the permitting
• You’ll also get advice/input on ideal basin placement and plant selection.
Costs
Average price (after City Rainwater Harvesting Rebate) is expected to be $500 per basin. Actual average cost is $1,000 per basin with curb coring, but the rebate covers half the cost up to $500.
This is an amazing deal! The average basin can capture over 4,500 gallons per year (assuming average annual rainfall of 11 inches). Trees and other plantings planted with such basins grow to be healthier and larger, and have faster growth rates than those without such basins. And the basins bottoms and planting terrace can be seeded or planted with beautiful native understory plantings. See here for ideas of understory plantings and their ideal planting location.
This basin creation price is lower than market rates because we are able to get a bulk deal by pooling many installations and permits into one—it pays to collaborate as a community! We coordinate the design services, underground utility markings, permitting, inspection, and & contracting so you don’t have to!
Excavation is done by a backhoe and operator, excavated soil is removed from site (unless homeowner wants to use it elsewhere on property), and includes rock, professional rockwork, curb coring, and wood chip mulch. This new set up with contractors is more sustainable than our past program, because in the past a few volunteers would have to work for an additional week to finish up what was not completed in the public planting/basin creation day. Additionally, under the current program basins are larger with much higher capacity – resulting in far more free irrigation stormwater and much more flood control.
You can see an example of Dryland Design’s rockwork in the public right of way in front of 236 W. University Blvd. (along with the photos below).
Native trees (5-gallon size) cost $27 each. Understory plants (1-gallon size) cost $12 each. Native wildflower seed is included in basin price.
We highly recommend you plant trees, understory plants, and native wildflower seed all at the same time. This makes irrigating them all (to get them established) much easier as you are already irrigating, and quickly establishes a living sponge of beautiful, sheltering, wildlife-supporting, vegetation including edible and medicinal species.
Expand or enhance existing water-harvesting basins
The basin creation service can also be used to enlarge or enhance existing (but perhaps undersized) basins.
Create a curb core to an existing street-side basin
Average cost per 4-inch diameter core hole drilled is $75. A fantastic deal, because once done you get free stormwater for life – as long as you keep the core inlet clear of debris.
ALL TREE, BASIN, AND CURB CORING ORDERS MUST BE IN BY JANUARY 1, 2020.
Email Brad at brad@harvestingrainwater.com or Omar at nativeroots.az@gmail.com to get on the list and get your tree-order form(s), maintenance agreements, and checklist to ensure your site will meet the requirements of this program and the city permit.
You can also EMAIL US TO GET ON THE LIST FOR NEXT YEAR
• 2021 Tree & Understory Order Form is needed for trees that are to be planted in public right-of-way. The prices of these trees have been reduced/subsidized thanks to Trees for Tucson and neighborhood nurseryman Sky Jacobs.
• Maintenance & Stewarding Agreement must be filled out, signed, and handed in for every address ordering trees.
Requirements to get the Rain and Tree Planting help of Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters program:
1. Invasive weeds must be removed from all areas you want to plant rainwater and trees BEFORE the rain and trees are planted.
2. Must have a continuous pedestrian path minimum 5-feet wide, cleared to a height of 7 feet, and having an approved path surface in the public right-of-way adjoining your property.
Approved pathway materials that maintain public access and walkability:
• Compacted native soil. Free and already on site!
• Screened organic material (woodchip) mulch no larger than 1/2-inch in particle size.
(Do not apply mulch thicker than a 1-inch depth. Thicker depths bog down small wheels of babycarriages and wheelchairs).
One local mulch supplier is Tank’s Green Stuff.
• Compacted or stabilized ¼ to 3/8-inch minus decomposed granite (DG).
There are natural polymers that can be mixed in with the decomposed granite to better hold it together and stabilize it. DG is available from local landscape material suppliers. (Gary Wittwer, past Landscape Architect, City of Tucson Transportation Department told me this can be installed to be American Disabilities Act (ADA)-accessible
• Pavers/brick, which can be installed within the grade/slope tolerances of the ADA
• Maintained concrete sidewalks (ADA-accessible)
Non-approved, non-accepted path materials that inhibit public access and walkability:
• Loose rock or gravel
• Decomposed granite larger than 3/8-inch in particle size
• Course organic material (woodchip) mulch larger than 1-inch in size; or organic mulch thicker than 1-inch depth.
NOTE: If you would like trees for planting on private property, visit https://tucsoncleanandbeautiful.org/trees-for-tucson/ or call (520) 791-3109. Native and fruit trees are available (ideally you set up a greywater-harvesting system for these fruit trees first, as they will require more water than native trees as well as regular watering in the hot and dry seasons). Note that the City of Tucson has a greywater-harvesting rebate covering up to half the cost of a greywater system with a rebate cap of $1,000.

Dunbar Spring Neighborhood Rain Planting and Curb Coring Service flyer 2021

Excavating and hauling away excavated soil to create street-side basin.

Basin excavated. Checking depth of basin and planting terraces with laser level.

Beautiful rock work stabilizing basin banks and planting terraces. Local surface rock – Catalina granite – used.

Drilling 4-inch core hole to basin.

Core hole complete

Rain and plants planted winter 2-2019

Flourishing plants 6 months after planting 8-2019. Southeast corner 10th Avenue and 1st Street

Curb core complete.
Reproduced with permission from Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2, 2nd Edition by Brad Lancaster

2021-04-18 08:00 - 17:00 (America/Phoenix)
25th Annual Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Food Forest Planting – Tucson, AZ

Saturday, April 24, 2021 @ 8:00 am – 11:00 am
Free

This planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers is occurring in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood, but the planting event is open to anyone from any neighborhood, and is a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere.
Neighborhood volunteers planting street-side water-harvesting basin.Photo: Brad Lancaster
Date: Saturday, April 24, 2021.
The stormwater eddy basins (each having over 4,500-gallon annual capacity) were just completed – so now we can plant. We plant the rain before we plant the plants!
Time: 8:00 am for a planting demonstration, then keep going to various parts of the neighborhood. We start early to beat the heat. The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch. End time of 11am is approximate.
Meeting spot: 902 N. 10th Ave, Tucson AZ 85705 (south of property, on 2nd Street)
Once we finish planting there, we’ll move to the following locations in Dunbar/Spring:
836 N. 10th Ave
123 W. 4th Street
Then at 8am on Sunday, April 25 we’ll do another planting in West University Neighborhood.
Volunteer planting crew of neighborhood foresters just after planting street-side water-harvesting basin.Hose is giving the just-planted plants a good first watering.
Come join us in planting native shade trees and understory vegetation within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way. The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners. Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF. This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we also reduce water consumption (by reducing our use of drinking water from the municipal supply) and we reduce downstream flooding. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,600 trees being planted in our neighborhood, hundreds of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!

What to bring: Work clothes, sun hat, gloves, snacks, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

Bonus: We’ll also help you identify desired native wildflowers to encourage – and pesky invasive weeds to pull – so next year we have more wildflowers and fewer weeds.
Planting native wildflower seed around street-side water-harvesting basin.Photo: Brad Lancaster
And you can purchase the new, full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster.

Info that follows just gives you more info on the program that created the basins we’ll be planting, to inspire you to sign up for next year’s rain planting or to organize one in other neighborhoods…

Water-Harvesting-Basin-Creation Service:
This year we are working with licensed contractors (John Litzel of Little John Excavating and Jeff Rhody of Dryland Design) to:
• Dig the basin(s) [average size is 5-8 feet long x 5 feet wide x 1 foot deep] with a backhoe
• Remove excavated soil with backhoe and dump truck
• Deliver and hand-set local Catalina granite rock to stabilize the basin banks and planting terraces.
• Drill core holes or curb cuts in the street curb to direct street runoff into the street-side basin for a lifetime of free stormwater irrigation and flood control
• Handle the permitting
• You’ll also get advice/input on ideal basin placement and plant selection.
Costs
Average price (after City Rainwater Harvesting Rebate) is expected to be $500 per basin. Actual average cost is $1,000 per basin with curb coring, but the rebate covers half the cost up to $500.
This is an amazing deal! The average basin can capture over 4,500 gallons per year (assuming average annual rainfall of 11 inches). Trees and other plantings planted with such basins grow to be healthier and larger, and have faster growth rates than those without such basins. And the basins bottoms and planting terrace can be seeded or planted with beautiful native understory plantings. See here for ideas of understory plantings and their ideal planting location.
This basin creation price is lower than market rates because we are able to get a bulk deal by pooling many installations and permits into one—it pays to collaborate as a community! We coordinate the design services, underground utility markings, permitting, inspection, and & contracting so you don’t have to!
Excavation is done by a backhoe and operator, excavated soil is removed from site (unless homeowner wants to use it elsewhere on property), and includes rock, professional rockwork, curb coring, and wood chip mulch. This new set up with contractors is more sustainable than our past program, because in the past a few volunteers would have to work for an additional week to finish up what was not completed in the public planting/basin creation day. Additionally, under the current program basins are larger with much higher capacity – resulting in far more free irrigation stormwater and much more flood control.
You can see an example of Dryland Design’s rockwork in the public right of way in front of 236 W. University Blvd. (along with the photos below).
Native trees (5-gallon size) cost $27 each. Understory plants (1-gallon size) cost $12 each. Native wildflower seed is included in basin price.
We highly recommend you plant trees, understory plants, and native wildflower seed all at the same time. This makes irrigating them all (to get them established) much easier as you are already irrigating, and quickly establishes a living sponge of beautiful, sheltering, wildlife-supporting, vegetation including edible and medicinal species.
Expand or enhance existing water-harvesting basins
The basin creation service can also be used to enlarge or enhance existing (but perhaps undersized) basins.
Create a curb core to an existing street-side basin
Average cost per 4-inch diameter core hole drilled is $75. A fantastic deal, because once done you get free stormwater for life – as long as you keep the core inlet clear of debris.
ALL TREE, BASIN, AND CURB CORING ORDERS MUST BE IN BY JANUARY 1, 2020.
Email Brad at brad@harvestingrainwater.com or Omar at nativeroots.az@gmail.com to get on the list and get your tree-order form(s), maintenance agreements, and checklist to ensure your site will meet the requirements of this program and the city permit.
You can also EMAIL US TO GET ON THE LIST FOR NEXT YEAR
• 2020 Tree & Understory Order Form is needed for trees that are to be planted in public right-of-way. The prices of these trees have been reduced/subsidized thanks to Trees for Tucson and neighborhood nurseryman Sky Jacobs.
• Tree-Curb-core-and-Basin-maintenance-agreement-v1.3.-2019 must be filled out, signed, and handed in for every address ordering trees.
Requirements to get the Rain and Tree Planting help of Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters program:
1. Invasive weeds must be removed from all areas you want to plant rainwater and trees BEFORE the rain and trees are planted.
2. Must have a continuous pedestrian path minimum 5-feet wide, cleared to a height of 7 feet, and having an approved path surface in the public right-of-way adjoining your property.
Approved pathway materials that maintain public access and walkability:
• Compacted native soil. Free and already on site!
• Screened organic material (woodchip) mulch no larger than 1/2-inch in particle size.
(Do not apply mulch thicker than a 1-inch depth. Thicker depths bog down small wheels of babycarriages and wheelchairs).
One local mulch supplier is Tank’s Green Stuff.
• Compacted or stabilized ¼ to 3/8-inch minus decomposed granite (DG).
There are natural polymers that can be mixed in with the decomposed granite to better hold it together and stabilize it. DG is available from local landscape material suppliers. (Gary Wittwer, past Landscape Architect, City of Tucson Transportation Department told me this can be installed to be American Disabilities Act (ADA)-accessible
• Pavers/brick, which can be installed within the grade/slope tolerances of the ADA
• Maintained concrete sidewalks (ADA-accessible)
Non-approved, non-accepted path materials that inhibit public access and walkability:
• Loose rock or gravel
• Decomposed granite larger than 3/8-inch in particle size
• Course organic material (woodchip) mulch larger than 1-inch in size; or organic mulch thicker than 1-inch depth.
NOTE: If you would like trees for planting on private property, visit https://tucsoncleanandbeautiful.org/trees-for-tucson/ or call (520) 791-3109. Native and fruit trees are available (ideally you set up a greywater-harvesting system for these fruit trees first, as they will require more water than native trees as well as regular watering in the hot and dry seasons). Note that the City of Tucson has a greywater-harvesting rebate covering up to half the cost of a greywater system with a rebate cap of $1,000.

Dunbar Spring Neighborhood Rain Planting and Curb Coring Service flyer 2021

Excavating and hauling away excavated soil to create street-side basin.

Basin excavated. Checking depth of basin and planting terraces with laser level.

Beautiful rock work stabilizing basin banks and planting terraces. Local surface rock – Catalina granite – used.

Drilling 4-inch core hole to basin.

Core hole complete

Rain and plants planted winter 2-2019

Flourishing plants 6 months after planting 8-2019. Southeast corner 10th Avenue and 1st Street

Curb core complete.
Reproduced with permission from Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2, 2nd Edition by Brad Lancaster

2020 Rocky Mountain Natural Building Conference - Moab, Utah
2020-03-26 - 2020-03-28
The Natural Building Alliance presents the 2020 Rocky Mountain Natural Building Conference. This will be our first conference outside of Colorado. Come join us in Beautiful Moab, Utah, the home of Community Rebuilds and endless recreation opportunities. The event will be held at the Moab Arts and Recreation Center Thursday, March 26th through Saturday 28th.
The theme of the conference is “All Hands In”. This theme recognizes and celebrates the fact that everything that all of us are doing is important and awesome, and that we can work together to make it even more awesome.
Our Keynote Speaker for the event with be Chris Magwood of the Endeavour Centre, from Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. He will be exploring if Natural Builders are Climate Heroes. Brad Lancaster will also be speaking and teaching at the event on regenerative and integrated harvests of on-site, free waters.
The conference program will include podium presentations, breakout sessions, and round-tables, and will also feature a generous variety of outdoor, hands-on workshops, and jovial after-hours gatherings. And don’t forget… it’s Moab! We encourage everyone to arrive early or stay late and enjoy this amazing corner of Planet Earth.
Online registration for the conference is available at special Early Bird rates until January 15th. Space at the venue is limited, so sign up before it fills up! You can pay via your PayPal account, a credit card via “Stripe”, through the Natural Building Alliance website, or by mailing a good ol’ fashioned check. Tickets are also available through Eventbrite on our Natural Building Alliance Facebook page. If you’re an existing NBA member, please email us for a discount coupon code.
For more details see:
https://natural-building-alliance.org/events/2020_rmnbc/

Agroforestry conference, March 17 to 19, 2020 - Tucson, Arizona
2020-03-17 - 2020-03-18
REGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Southwest Agroforestry Action Network, 2ndAnnual Conference
Southwest Agroforestry Challenges and Best Practice Solutions

WHEN: March 17 – 19, 2020
WHERE: Tucson, AZ
AGENDA AND REGISTRATION: https://swaan-site.org/

WHO IS SWAAN?
The Southwest Agroforestry Action Network (SWAAN) mission: Helping people integrate trees, crops, and animals to regenerate Southwest landscapes. SWAAN’s scope of interest is forest-agricultural activities on tribal, state, federal, county, municipal and private lands in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

Agricultural producers, Tribes, ranchers, community gardeners and orchardists, permaculturalists, water harvesters, and others who produce food for themselves;
Representatives of government agencies, cooperative extension, universities, and nonprofit organizations who support sustainable solutions for agriculture, forestry, and communities through their programs; and
People interested in community food forests and forest-agricultural activities including alley cropping, forest farming, riparian forest buffers, silvopasture, windbreaks, and shelterbelts.

AGENDA SUMMARY
Complete agenda at https://swaan-site.org/

Tuesday, March 17, Presentations
University of Arizona, ENR2 Building, Room 107, 1064 E Lowell St, Tucson, AZ
One day registration fee $40; lunch provided

Dr. James Allen, SWAAN, NAU: Introduction to SWAAN and Agroforestry in the Southwest
Dr. Kathleen Merrigan, Morning Keynote, ASU Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems: Sustainable Food Systems in the US Southwest
Susan Stein, USDA National Agroforestry Center: The National Agroforestry Center, an Information Resource
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS): Opportunities for NRCS Financial and Technical Assistance to Support Agroforestry Practices
Denise Purvis, Mary McKay, Harris Heritage Farm, Sonoita, AZ: Developing and Sustaining a Family Farm in Southern Arizona
Dr. Ursula Schuch, Environmental Horticulture, UA School of Plant Sciences:Best Practice Solutions for Increasing the Success of Agroforestry in Semi-arid Environments of the US Southwest
Brad Lancaster, Afternoon Keynote Speaker, Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond: Best Practices for Providing Sustainable Water Supplies to Urban Trees
Kendall Kroesen, Mission Garden/Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace: Mission Garden: Tucson’s Agricultural Origins
Jacobo Marcus, Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture Institute: High Desert Food Forests
Ann Audrey, Linking Edible Arizona Forests (LEAF) Network: Resources for Growing Edible Trees in Agroforestry Systems in Arizona
Cori Dolan, Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management: Resources Available to Help Support Trees in Arizona

Wednesday, March 18, Fieldtrips
One day registration fee, $40, lunch provided

Mission Garden, Tucson, AZ: Time line gardens covering 4000 years with extensive tree and garden plantings
Dunbar-Spring Neighborhood, Tucson, AZ: Neighborhood Foresters tree-planting program in public rights-of-way supported by water harvesting and Brad Lancaster’s permaculture homestead with water harvesting, solar power and edible trees
Harris Heritage Growers, Sonoita, AZ: Tour of U-Pick Family Farm in southern Arizona with trees, crops and animals

Thursday, March 19, SWAAN Business Meeting
UA/Pima County Cooperative Extension Office, 4210 N Campbell Avenue, Tucson, AZ
Conference participants and public are invited to attend.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Dr. Kathleen Merrigan, Director, Arizona State University Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems
Dr. Kathleen Merrigan helped write the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990. As the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture from 2009 to 2013, she managed the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Foodinitiative to support local and regional food systems. She became the first female chair of the ‘Ministerial Conference of the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization in 2009 and was named one of Time magazine’s “100 most influential people in the world” in 2010. Prior to coming to ASU’s Swette Center, Dr. Merrigan was the executive director of sustainability at George Washington University, leading their Sustainability Collaborative and Food Institute.

Brad Lancaster, Author of the book series Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and BeyondBrad Lancaster isa dynamic teacher, consultant, and designer of regenerative systems that sustainably enhance local resources and our global potential. Lancaster has taught water harvesting and sustainable design throughout North America as well as in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia. His hometown projects have included working with the City of Tucson and other municipalities to legalize, incentivize, and provide guidance on water-harvesting systems, demonstration sites, and policy. In Tucson, with just 11 inches of annual rainfall, he and his brother harvest around 100,000 gallons of rainwater a year on an eighth-acre urban lot and adjoining vegetated right-of-way.

24th Annual Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Food Forest Planting - Tucson, AZ
2020-03-15 09:00 - 12:00 (America/Phoenix)
This planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers is occurring in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood, but the planting event is open to anyone from any neighborhood, and is a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere.
Date: Sunday, March 15, 2020.
The stormwater eddy basins (each having over 4,500-gallon annual capacity) were just completed – so now we can plant. Got to plant the rain before we plant the plants!
Time: 9:00 am for a planting demonstration, then keep going to various parts of the neighborhood. The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch. End time of noon is approximate.
Meeting spot: 948 N. 10th Ave, Tucson AZ 85705
Once we finish planting there, we’ll move to other locations in Dunbar/Spring and West University neighborhoods
902 N. 10th Ave
236 W. University Blvd
2nd Street and Main Avenue
1015 N. 5th Ave.
9th Avenue and University Blvd.
Come join us in planting native shade trees and understory vegetation within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way. The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners. Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF. This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we also reduce water consumption as we reduce downstream flooding. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,500 trees being planted in our neighborhood, hundreds of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!

What to bring: Work clothes, sun hat, gloves, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

Bonus: We’ll also help you identify desired native wildflowers to encourage – and pesky invasive weeds to pull – so next year we have more wildflowers and fewer weeds.

And you can purchase the new, full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster

Info that follows just gives you more info on the program that created the basins we’ll be planting, to inspire you to sign up for next year’s rain planting or to organize one in other neighborhoods…

Water-Harvesting-Basin-Creation Service:
This year we are working with licensed contractors (John Litzel of Little John Excavating and Jeff Rhody of Dryland Design) to:
• Dig the basin(s) [average size is 5-8 feet long x 5 feet wide x 1 foot deep] with a backhoe
• Remove excavated soil with backhoe and dump truck
• Deliver and hand-set local Catalina granite rock to stabilize the basin banks and planting terraces. (Those wanting to learn how to set rock and work with, and learn from, the contractor will likely have this opportunity – contact Brad if this interests you).
• Drill core holes in the street curb to direct street runoff into the street-side basin for a lifetime of free stormwater irrigation and flood control
• Handle the permitting
• You’ll also get advice/input on ideal basin placement and plant selection.
Costs
Average price (after City Rainwater Harvesting Rebate) is expected to be $450 – $500 per basin. Actual average cost is $900 to $1,000 per basin with curb coring, but the rebate covers half the cost up to $500.
This is an amazing deal! The average basin can capture over 4,500 gallons per year (assuming average annual rainfall of 11 inches). Trees and other plantings planted with such basins grow to be healthier and larger, and have faster growth rates than those without such basins. And the basins bottoms and planting terrace can be seeded or planted with beautiful native understory plantings. See here for ideas of understory plantings and their ideal planting location.
This basin creation price is lower than market rates because we are able to get a bulk deal by pooling many installations and permits into one—it pays to collaborate as a community! We coordinate the design services, underground utility markings, permitting, inspection, and & contracting so you don’t have to!
Excavation is done by a backhoe and operator, excavated soil is removed from site (unless homeowner wants to use it elsewhere on property), and includes rock, professional rockwork, curb coring, and wood chip mulch. This new set up with contractors is more sustainable than our past program, because in the past a few volunteers would have to work for an additional week to finish up what was not completed in the public planting/basin creation day. Additionally, under the current program basins are larger with much higher capacity – resulting in far more free irrigation stormwater and much more flood control.
You can see an example of Dryland Design’s rockwork at the two basins recently created on the south side of the Dunbar/Spring Community Garden on University Blvd between 11th Ave and Main Ave., and the basin at the SE corner of 10th Ave and First Street (photos below).
Native trees (5-gallon size) cost $25 each. Understory plants (1-gallon size) cost $10 each. Native wildflower seed is included in basin price.
We highly recommend you plant trees, understory plants, and native wildflower seed all at the same time. This makes irrigating them all (to get them established) much easier as you are already irrigating, and quickly establishes a living sponge of beautiful, sheltering, wildlife-supporting, vegetation including edible and medicinal species.
Expand or enhance existing water-harvesting basins
The basin creation service can also be used to enlarge or enhance existing (but perhaps undersized) basins.
Create a curb core to an existing street-side basin
Average cost per 4-inch diameter core hole drilled is $75. A fantastic deal, because once done you get free stormwater for life – as long as you keep the core inlet clear of debris.
ALL TREE, BASIN, AND CURB CORING ORDERS MUST BE IN BY JANUARY 1, 2020.
Email Brad at brad@harvestingrainwater.com or Omar at nativeroots.az@gmail.com to get on the list and get your tree-order form(s), maintenance agreements, and checklist to ensure your site will meet the requirements of this program and the city permit.
• 2020 Tree & Understory Order Form is needed for trees that are to be planted in public right-of-way. The prices of these trees have been reduced/subsidized thanks to Trees for Tucson and neighborhood nurseryman Sky Jacobs.
• Tree-Curb-core-and-Basin-maintenance-agreement-v1.3.-2019 must be filled out, signed, and handed in for every address ordering trees.
Requirements to get the Rain and Tree Planting help of Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters program:
1. Invasive weeds must be removed from all areas you want to plant rainwater and trees BEFORE the rain and trees are planted.
2. Must have a continuous pedestrian path minimum 5-feet wide, cleared to a height of 7 feet, and having an approved path surface in the public right-of-way adjoining your property.
Approved pathway materials that maintain public access and walkability:
• Compacted native soil. Free and already on site!
• Screened organic material (woodchip) mulch no larger than 1/2-inch in particle size.
(Do not apply mulch thicker than a 1-inch depth. Thicker depths bog down small wheels of babycarriages and wheelchairs).
One local mulch supplier is Tank’s Green Stuff.
• Compacted or stabilized ¼ to 3/8-inch minus decomposed granite (DG).
There are natural polymers that can be mixed in with the decomposed granite to better hold it together and stabilize it. DG is available from local landscape material suppliers. (Gary Wittwer, past Landscape Architect, City of Tucson Transportation Department told me this can be installed to be American Disabilities Act (ADA)-accessible
• Pavers/brick, which can be installed within the grade/slope tolerances of the ADA
• Maintained concrete sidewalks (ADA-accessible)
Non-approved, non-accepted path materials that inhibit public access and walkability:
• Loose rock or gravel
• Decomposed granite larger than 3/8-inch in particle size
• Course organic material (woodchip) mulch larger than 1-inch in size; or organic mulch thicker than 1-inch depth.
NOTE: If you would like trees for planting on private property, visit https://tucsoncleanandbeautiful.org/trees-for-tucson/ or call (520) 791-3109. Native and fruit trees are available (ideally you set up a greywater-harvesting system for these fruit trees first, as they will require more water than native trees as well as regular watering in the hot and dry seasons). Note that the City of Tucson has a greywater-harvesting rebate covering up to half the cost of a greywater system with a rebate cap of $1,000.

Dunbar Spring Neighborhood Rain Planting and Curb Coring Service flyer 2020

Excavating and hauling away excavated soil to create street-side basin.

Basin excavated. Checking depth of basin and planting terraces with laser level.

Beautiful rock work stabilizing basin banks and planting terraces. Local surface rock – Catalina granite – used.

Drilling 4-inch core hole to basin.

Core hole complete

Rain and plants planted winter 2-2019

Flourishing plants 6 months after planting 8-2019. Southeast corner 10th Avenue and 1st Street

Water Harvesting Certification Course - Tucson, AZ
2020-03-08 - 2020-03-15
For full course details please visit: watershedmg.org/learn/training/certification
General Course Schedule

Sunday, March 8, 4pm-6pm
Monday, March 9 – Saturday, March 14, 8am-5pm (slight variations day-to-day)
Sunday, March 15, 10am-4:30pm

Certification course curriculum
The curriculum provides detailed instruction on water-harvesting systems, planning, design, and installation for retrofitting urban areas. The course includes:

In-depth site assessment and integrated system design of rainwater harvesting earthworks, rain tanks, and greywater features
Hands-on training workshops to install water-harvesting systems at public, residential, or commercial sites
Reading and homework assignments to solidify knowledge gained in hands-on workshops
Final exam to earn certification

The Water Harvesting Design Certification course is designed and administered by WMG staff with assistance from professionals who teach and implement water-harvesting practices. Cost includes lunch and snacks provided each day of the training.

Hands-On Tree Care, Pruning & Mulching Workshop Saturday, February 22, 2020
2020-02-22 09:00 - 13:00 (America/Phoenix)
Starts at 9am, stay as long as you can or want
Cost: $5 suggested donation, though no one will be turned away due to lack of funds.
Where: the The Revolutionary Petunia/Dunbar Community Garden/Orchard space (NW corner of 11th Ave and University Blvd). Tucson, Arizona
Open to all. Learn how you can organize similar Neighborhood Forester efforts in your neighborhood.
After demonstration we will move to various parts of the neighborhood to get supervised hands-on experience as we help prune native food-bearing trees in our neighborhood’s public rights-of-way.
This is an incredible learning opportunity as every six months we revisit and rework areas pruned so we see the effect of our good work and mistakes, thereby enabling us to improve and evolve with the expert guidance from certified arborist Aleck MacKinnon.
We’ll also cover how to prune to keep trees below power lines out of conflict with the utility lines.
Professionals can get continued education credits for the workshop from Aleck.
Instructors: certified arborist Aleck MacKinnon of the Pedaling Arborist, assisted by Brad Lancaster and Omar Ore-Giron of the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters.
Bring pruning tools if you have them. We’ll provide for those that don’t.

Mulch service turning “wastes” into resources:
After the pruning, Omar will offer a service Dunbar/Spring neighbors to haul prunings to Tank’s Materials and deliver a half cubic yard of mulch in return. Minimum cost is $20, based on volume.
This way the pruned biomass is recycled back into the root zone of the trees it came from. Nothing is thrown away or removed from the natural system.
NOTE: All public rights-of-ways adjoining properties must maintain a continuous clear walkway area a minimum 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall to make our neighborhood walkways and forests accessible for all.
See our Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Walkability Study here.
Sponsored by the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters
and Desert Harvesters

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Tour with Brad Lancaster - Tucson, AZ
2020-02-15 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Phoenix)
SOLD OUT
– To be notified of the next tour email brad at admin@www.harvestingrainwater.com

WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, Arizona
WHEN: 10am to noon, Saturday, February 15, 2020
COST: $10 per person. Must pay/register in advance:

SOLD OUT
– To be notified of the next tour email brad at admin@www.harvestingrainwater.com

Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding neighborhood.
This is a rare opportunity as Brad does not give many public tours.

100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually

In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into a welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the just released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.

Spring 2020 - Permaculture Design Course, Tucson, AZ
2020-02-08
Dates for the the upcoming Spring 2020 course are the following five weekends:
-February 8th and 9th
-February 15th and 16th
-February 29th and March 1st
-March 14th and 15th
-March 21st and 22nd
Generally, class runs from 9AM to 5:30 PM each day. The cost for the course is $785. There is an OPTIONAL textbook cost of about $42 for a copy of Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison, available on the Internet, but it is not required. You will be able to complete the course with just the 175 page notebook supplied as part of the course fee. Also highly recommended is Brad Lancaster’s Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1, 3rd Edition. A limited number of partial scholarships are available to cover the course fee.
For more information see here

Borderlands Regional Watershed Restoration Practitioners Workshop - Arivaca, AZ
2020-02-08 - 2020-02-09
Saturday and Sunday, February 8-9, 2020 in Arivaca, AZ
Hosted by the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance

Sponsored by the USFWS Partners for Fish and Wildlife program

Join other practitioners such as Steve Carson of Rangeland Hands, Brad Lancaster of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Jeff Rhody and Omar Ore-Giron of Dryland Designs, and many more in the Southwest borderlands region to design and implement treatments for drainages and begin aligning professional approaches and strategies specific to our region. The hands-on work emphasis will be on the uplands of dryland watersheds.

At the workshop, we will:

Treat drainages on the Noon Ranch to encourage infiltration and native plant growth, slow erosion, and move toward connecting channels with the floodplain

Strengthen connections among practitioners in our region working in urban, suburban, and rural contexts to grow our awareness of a community of practitioners

Discuss the following concepts among practitioners:

Strategies, approaches, terminology, reading the landscape, and best practices for treating drainages and uplands

Designing work according to various land management goals (e.g., designing for cattle use, wildlife habitat, recreation, etc.)

Links between rural/wildland work, road work, and urban work

Materials, resources, and activities needed to improve professional capacity and the overall quality of work in our region

Using these practices to support local economies in restoring watersheds and developing provisioning economies/food systems

Incorporate materials and lessons learned into the Altar Valley Watershed Plan and other planning efforts

All practitioners and aspiring practitioners are welcome to join the workshop, so please forward this invitation to whomever may be interested! The draft agenda is attached; please plan to bring your own lunches and tools. All are welcome to participate in a potluck dinner and campout near the Noon Ranch on Saturday night!

Please RSVP here!

Water Harvesting Presentation, Book Release & Signing with Brad Lancaster - Phoenix, AZ
2020-01-24 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Phoenix)
WHERE: University of Arizona Maricopa County Cooperative Extension, Palo Verde Room
4341 E. Broadway Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85040
WHEN: 7:00pm, Friday, January 24th
COST: Free

Join award-winning author, Brad Lancaster for an evening of storytelling, celebration, and interaction as he shares new evolutions of inexpensive and highly effective strategies, policies, and practices that make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater, storm water, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more.

All can be implemented at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood and beyond in a way that collaborates with, rather than fights, the living systems that sustain us.

Stories and highlights from the newly released & revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning books will be featured.

Brad will also be doing book signing, and a limited number of the newly released full-color, revised & expanded editions of Brad’s books will be available for purchase at deep discount on a first come, first serve basis.

Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers will also be available for purchase.

ReEnlivening, ReWilding, & ReHydrating Our Communities presentation with Brad Lancaster - Tempe, AZ
2020-01-17 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Phoenix)
WHEN: 12 noon to 1:15pm, Friday, January 17, 2020
WHERE: Wrigley Hall, Room 481
Arizona State University, Tempe campus
COST: Free – if you preregister
REGISTER NOW: Here
HOST: JulieAnn Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University
Join award-winning author, Brad Lancaster, as he shares inexpensive, and highly effective, strategies that make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater, storm water, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more.
All can be implemented at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood and beyond.
Stories and highlights from the newly revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning books Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond will be featured.
There will be a book signing immediately following the lecture.
A limited number of books will be available for purchase for at deep discount on a first come, first serve basis.
A light lunch will be served – but you must preregister here.

Water Harvesting Book Release, Talk, and Book Signing with Brad Lancaster - Phoenix, AZ
2020-01-16 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Phoenix)
WHEN: 7:00pm, Thursday, January 16
WHERE: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W Camelback Rd., Phoenix, AZ 85013
COST: Free
Join award-winning author, Brad Lancaster, as he shares inexpensive, and highly effective, strategies that make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater, storm water, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more.
All can be implemented at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood and beyond.
Stories and highlights from the newly revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning books
will be featured.
There will be a book signing immediately following the lecture.
A limited number of books will be available for purchase at deep discount on a first come, first serve basis.
Brad will also have Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers available for purchase.

Water Harvesting Book Release, Interactive Presentation, & Book Signing with Brad Lancaster - Tucson, AZ
2020-01-15 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Phoenix)
WHEN: 6:30 pm, Wednesday, January 15th
WHERE: EXO Roast & Bar, 403 N 6th Ave, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: Free

Join award-winning author, Brad Lancaster for an evening of storytelling, celebration, and interaction as he shares new evolutions of inexpensive and highly effective strategies, policies, and practices that make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater, storm water, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more.

All can be implemented at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood and beyond in a way that collaborates with, rather than fights, the living systems that sustain us.

Stories and highlights from the newly released & revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning books will be featured.

Brad will also be doing book signing, and a limited number of books will be available for purchase at deep discount on a first come, first serve basis.

Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers will also be available for purchase.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Tour with Brad Lancaster - Tucson, AZ
2019-12-21 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Phoenix)
WHEN: 10am – 12pm, Saturday, December 21, 2020
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $10 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.

Number of home tour attendees

One person $10.00 USDTwo people $20.00 USDThree people $30.00 USDFour people $40.00 USDFive people $50.00 USD

Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding neighborhood.

100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into a welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Just in time for the holidays – Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the just released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/shop/

Water Harvesting Presentation & Book Signing with Brad Lancaster in Las Vegas, NV
2019-12-02 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver)
Date and time: Monday, December 2, 6:00pm
Place: University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, Lifelong Learning Center, Classrooms A, C, D
850 Paradise Road #105, Las Vegas, NV 89123
Cost: FREE
Turn water scarcity into abundance!
This dynamic presentation shares inexpensive, and highly effective, strategies that
make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater,
stormwater, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more. You can implement all
at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood, and beyond with numerous benefits
such as flood control; reduced bills; local food production; beauty; street tree orchards;
wildlife habitat; regenerating the flows of springs, creeks, wetlands, and rivers;
community-building; and joy.
Stories and highlights from the newly revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning
books, and Desert Harvesters’ Eat Mesquite and More will be featured. And the books will be available for sale at deep discount!
Flyer for Brad Lancaster presentation in Las Vegas

ARCSA Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada
2019-12-02 - 2019-12-05
Brad will be presenting at the conference Dec. 3 at 1pm.
Here’s a brief synopsis of the presentation:
Plant the Rain, Recycle Your Drain Water, and Save Energy; While Growing Resilience, Abundance, and Joy
by Brad Lancaster, author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, and HarvestingRainwater.com

In most communities – even dryland communities more rain falls (for free) on the community than all its citizens consume of municipal water. Thus the potential of harvesting rainwater is huge, especially when one considers the energy and monetary costs of pumping and transporting water. 20% of the state of California’s energy consumption goes to transporting and treating water. In the City of Tucson it is over 44%.
Water-harvesting potential and energy savings dramatically increase still more when you integrate it with the recycling of once-used water, or greywater. You don’t need to buy tanks, pumps, and filters—you can grow them in a way that heats buildings in winter and cools them in summer for free. Gravity-fed systems and pipeless systems can also be utilized which never fail from power outages or leaks.
Integrating water-harvesting with flood control takes things even further, by shifting the focus from drainage to infiltration—results in millions of dollars saved per project, enhanced quality of life, and more income for cities and businesses.
Bleak streets and parking lots of exposed pavement can become street food forests and parking orchards irrigated with nothing more than the stormwater from the hardscape. Storm drains become storm parks. Crime drops, the heat-island effect becomes the cool-island effect, and life flourishes. This is available to us all everywhere if we make a simple mental shift. Numerous case studies and strategies to be shared, along with Water-Energy-Carbon Nexus charts for at-home perusal comparing the energy consumption of various sources of water, water needs of various energy sources (that may be used to pump or treat that water), and the carbon emitted by the water and energy sources.

For more info on the conference see:
https://www.arcsa.org/event/2019conference

Water Harvesting Presentation & Book Signing with Brad Lancaster in Silver City, NM
2019-11-19 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Denver)
Date and time: Tuesday, November 19th, 6:00pm
Place: El Sol Theatre, 406 N. Bullard Street, Silver City, NM 88061
Bring a blanket – wonderful old theater can be cold
Cost: $5 suggested donation,
though no one turned away due to lack of funds
Turn water scarcity into abundance!
This dynamic presentation shares inexpensive, and highly effective, strategies that
make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater,
stormwater, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more. You can implement all
at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood, and beyond with numerous benefits
such as flood control; reduced bills; local food production; beauty; street tree orchards;
wildlife habitat; regenerating the flows of springs, creeks, wetlands, and rivers;
community-building; and joy.
Stories and highlights from the newly revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning
books will be featured. And the books will be available for sale at deep discount!
Book tour flyer 2019 Silver City

Water Harvesting Presentation & Book Signing with Brad Lancaster in Truth or Consequences, NM
2019-11-10 16:30 - 17:30 (America/Denver)
Date and time: Sunday, November 10 – 4:30 pm
Place: Truth or Consequences Brewery
410 N. Broadway, Truth or Consequences, NM 87901
Cost: FREE
Turn water scarcity into abundance!
This dynamic presentation shares inexpensive, and highly effective, strategies that
make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater,
stormwater, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more. You can implement all
at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood, and beyond with numerous benefits
such as flood control; reduced bills; local food production; beauty; street tree orchards;
wildlife habitat; regenerating the flows of springs, creeks, wetlands, and rivers;
community-building; and joy.
Stories and highlights from the newly revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning books Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond will be featured. The books will be available for sale at deep discount!
Book tour flyer 2019 Truth or Consequences

Localizing California Waters: Integrated Water Solutions For Healthy Communities
2019-11-05 - 2019-11-08
Where: Rush Creek & Evergreen Lodges in Yosemite, California
The Localizing California Waters (LCW) Conference connects unlikely allies towards the broader goal of water management throughout California by discussing local water approaches in an intimate setting.
LCW breaks down barriers to alignment through presentations, round table discussions, workshops and information networking to work towards an outcome of innovative solutions to local and global climate challenges by advancing local water policy and enacting best water management practices at an accelerated pace.
This year, we’re focusing on activating the Water Portfolio.
For more info see:
https://localizingcaliforniawaters.org/

Watershed Management Group w/ Brad Lancaster: Water-Harvesting Certification Course, November 3–10, 2019 — Tucson AZ
2019-11-03 - 2019-11-10

Online Rainwater Harvesting Course
2019-10-21 - 2019-12-05
Note: Enrollment remains open until the night of October 27th.
Rainwater Harvesting Course Structure
WEEK 1 RAINWATER HARVESTING PRINCIPLES: You will share stories of people and sites that are using rainwater harvesting to enhance their lives and communities.
WEEK 2 SITE ASSESSMENT: You will discover how to analyze the rainwater resources in your climate and on your site, as well as the water requirements that you need to plan for.
WEEK 3 WATER COLLECTION STRATEGY: You will decide what features and systems to use and the reasons behind making the best choices for your site.
WEEK 4 RAINWATER HARVESTING DESIGNS: You will integrate your rainwater harvesting strategies into a wider plan that also considers the sun, plants, soils, and more.
WEEK 5 TECHNICAL SYSTEMS DETAILS: You will refine the conceptual plan you are developing to bring you closer to installing the plan on your site.
Learning Formats
You will assess your on-site rainwater resources and learn to apply a diversity of strategies to maximize their potential. This expert-led course features:

video lectures
exercises
assignments
custom made spreadsheets and templates

The course also features the work of Arizona rainwater harvesting author Brad Lancaster. Brad’s best-selling-award-winning book “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond Volume 1″ is the textbook for the course. Brad is also the featured lecturer, alongside Andrew Millison, the course’s developer.

For more information and to register see:
https://pace.oregonstate.edu/catalog/permaculture-rainwater-harvesting-online-course

Motherload Documentary Arizona Premiere at Film Fest Tucson
2019-10-12 18:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
LOCATION:
Tucson Children’s Museum, north lawn
200 S. 6th Ave, Tucson, Arizona 85701
Join proud hosts Film Fest Tucson and community partners Technicians For Sustainability, Brad Lancaster – Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Exo Roast Co., Transit Cycles, Roadrunner Bicycles, Living Streets Alliance and This Is Tucson for the Arizona premiere of the crowd-sourced cargo bike documentary, Motherload.
Motherload is a crowdsourced exploration of our cultural shift toward isolation and disconnection, what this means for the future of the planet, and how life on a cargo bike could be an antidote as experienced by scores of devotees. This film about the rise of the cargo bike and its ability to empower families to rethink their transportation in the 21st century.
Event is FREE. RSVP for your free ticket(s) here.
See movie trailer here
Brad will be there on his cargo bicycle with copies of his just released, new full-color editions of his books Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2 available for sale along with Plant the Rain shirts, caps, and bicycle stickers!

Desert Harvesters/Neighborhood Foresters Hands-On Neighborhood Tree Pruning & Mulching Workshop, September 29, 2019 - Tucson, Arizona
2019-09-29 08:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Hands-On Neighborhood Tree-Pruning
& Mulching Workshop
And neighborhood chipping/mulching fee for service, and neighborhood native plant delivery,
and help with planting service

Open to all

Sunday, September 29, 2019
Starts at 8 am, stay as long as you can or want
Cost: $5 suggested donation, though no one will be turned away due to lack of funds

Meet at Dunbar/Spring Community Garden/Orchard (NW corner of 11th Ave & University Blvd)
After the pruning and mulching demonstration, we will move to various parts of the neighborhood to get hands-on experience with certified arborist Aleck as we prune native food-bearing trees in our neighborhood’s public rights-of-way.
This is an incredible learning opportunity as every six months we revisit and rework areas pruned so we see the effect of our good work and mistakes, thereby enabling us to improve and evolve with the expert guidance from Aleck.
Professionals can also get continued education credits for the workshop from Aleck.
Instructors:
Local certified arborist Aleck MacKinnon, The Pedaling Arborist; assisted by Brad Lancaster of Desert Harvesters and Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond; and Omar Ore-Giron of Native Roots Gardening and Desert Harvesters will teach participants:
– Best pruning times, techniques, and tools;
– How best to maintain City clearance standards for trees in the public right-of-way along footpaths and streets; and
– How to reuse prunings (cut up with hand tools or chipped with chipper/shredder) as an aesthetically-pleasing, water-conserving, fertility-enhancing mulch.
After the pruning, we will turn the prunings into mulch by Tank’s Materials/Fairfax Company.
This way the pruned biomass is recycled back into the root zone of the trees it came from. Nothing is thrown away or removed from the natural system. And we feed, rather than degrade the living soil carbon sponge.
This is how to transform wasteful Brush & Bulky
into resourceful Chipped & Mulchy

Chipping and Mulching Service for Fee/Donation
In the workshop we’ll show you how to efficiently cut up prunings in mulch with hand tools, but for larger volumes of prunings we also offer a service for a minimum $20 donation whereby the prunings will be picked up by Omar and his trailer and taken to Tank’s Materials where they will be chipped and composted.
In return, Omar will bring about a 1/2 yard of finished mulch back to you from Tank’s.
(Note that the minimum donation for the service can vary based on the volume of your prunings).

Email Omar at nativeroots.az@gmail.com
We’ll also discuss other chipping/mulching services we are considering for future events.

Bring your own pruning tools, though we will provide tools for those that lack them

Come learn how you can replicate and evolve this practice to grow more healthy forests and citizen foresters in your neighborhood.
This workshop is open to, and can be attended by, EVERYONE, no matter what neighborhood you live in.
NOTE: All public rights-of-way in front of properties must maintain a minimum continuous clear walkway area 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall to make our neighborhood walkways and forests easily navigable for all. Please prune accordingly to enable this.
See our Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Walkability Study
Sponsored by the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters and Desert Harvesters

In addition, now is a great time to plant your rain gardens to start to get them established over the cool months!
See wildflowers and native perennials with seed mixes available from Wildlands Restoration and sold at Native Seeds/SEARCH, Tucson Audubon, Spadefoot Nursery, and Desert Survivors Nurseries.
Also, this week is Desert Survivors’ Native Plant Nursery’s big fall plant sale!
This weekend the sale is for members. Tuesday on, the sale is for everyone.
See the plant appendix of the new, full-color Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1, 3rd Edition
and ideal rain garden planting zones for the plants.

Native plant purchase, delivery, and help with planting service in Dunbar/Spring neighborhood
For a $10 per 1-gallon-sized plant fee, Brad will select, purchase, and deliver native plants for Dunbar/Spring residents, as long as you:
• you will be planting them within or beside a rain garden harvesting stormwater runoff
• you will help plant them – we’ll help you
• you agree to water and steward the plantings and their rain gardens to get the plants well- established.
You’ll need to water them at least once per week for the first year.
This is a great way to get more vibrant, living sponges, of mult-use native plants withing our community forest and public rain gardens (in public right-of-ways, round-a-bouts, chicanes, etc.)
Email Brad at brad@harvestingrainwater.com if you are interested.

Brad Lancaster with Watershed Management Group: Water-Harvesting Certification Course, March 3–10, 2019 — Tucson AZ
2019-03-03 - 2019-03-10

Brad Lancaster of Desert Harvesters: Wild-Food Forestry Presentation and “Eat Mesquite and More” Book Signing, November 9, 2018 — Albuquerque NM
2018-11-09 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles)

Brad Lancaster: Keynote Speaker at Spokane Conservation District's Farm & Food Expo, November 2, 2018 — Spokane WA
2018-11-02

Brad Lancaster with Watershed Management Group: Water-Harvesting Certification Course, October 21–28, 2018 — Tucson AZ
2018-10-21 - 2018-10-28

Aleck MacKinnon, Brad Lancaster, Omar Ore-Giron & Desert Harvesters' Neighborhood Foresters Program: FREE Hands-On Neighborhood Tree Pruning & Mulching Workshop, September 8, 2018 – Tucson, AZ
2018-09-08 08:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles)

Brad Lancaster of Desert Harvesters: Wild-Food Forestry Presentation & "Eat Mesquite and More" Booksigning, August 12, 2018 — Truth or Consequences NM
2018-08-12 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles)
