Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster

Brad Lancaster, Aleck MacKinnon, Omar Ore-Giron with Desert Harvesters and Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters: FREE Hands-On Neighborhood Tree-Pruning & Mulching Workshop, February 10, 2018 — Tucson AZ
2018-02-10 09:00 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
FREE Hands-On Neighborhood Tree-Pruning & Mulching Workshop
plus, an opportunity to get your prunings chipped into mulch for an extremely reasonable donation
Neighborhood volunteer pruning crew—note the piles of fresh prunings on the curb, ready for chipping
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Starts at 9 am—stay as long as you can or want
Meet at Dunbar/Spring Community Garden/Orchard (NW corner of 11th Ave & University Blvd)
After the demonstration, we will move to various parts of the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood to get hands-on experience with Aleck as we prune native and domesticated food-bearing trees in the neighborhood’s public rights-of-way.
Instructors:
Local certified arborist Aleck MacKinnon (The Pedaling Arborist),
Brad Lancaster (Desert Harvesters and Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond), and
Omar Ore-Giron (Native Roots Landscaping)
Participants will learn:
– Best pruning times, techniques, and tools;
– Best practices to maintain City clearance standards for trees in public rights-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.
Immediately after the pruning, we will turn the prunings into mulch with a chipper/shredder that will be moving through the neighborhood behind the pruners.
In 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.
This is how to transform wasteful Brush & Bulky
into resourceful Chipped & Mulchy
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.
See our Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Walkability Study
Sponsored by the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters
and Desert Harvesters
Chipping Service (by donation): Turn “wastes” into resources, as you transform your prunings into mulch
Throughout the pruning-workshop day, Omar Ore-Giron will be operating a rented industrial chipper-shredder to quickly turn prunings into mulch. To cover costs he will be asking for a donation of $30 per property for those using the chipper services. This is an amazing deal, as this would ordinarily cost well over $100 per property.
Pruning Requirements and Guidelines for Neighborhood Mulching Service:
• Contact Omar (nativeroots.az@gmail.com, (520) 425-9795) by Friday, February 9, to let him know you want your prunings mulched. Suggested minimum donation is $30.
• All public rights-of-way adjoining all properties must maintain/prune a continuous clear walkway a minimum 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall, so two people can comfortably walk along the path side by side without having to duck under limbs. Violations are subject to citations from the City of Tucson.
• All piles of prunings left beside street curb (for chipping into mulch) should contain ONLY freshly pruned green limbs 3” in diameter or less.
• No old, dry dead wood will be chipped into mulch, as this dulls the chipper blades too quickly.
• Pile branches so branch butts are all facing in the same direction. This helps ensure that the pile of prunings is not tangled, but rather is orderly and therefore easy to take apart to chip into mulch.
• Wide branch “crotches” or “V’s” should be cut at their base, so the branch will fit into the chipper (no diameter can exceed 3 inches).
• All piles must be on the street curbside before chipping service arrives on site.
This is a wonderful opportunity to:
• Meet neighbors, build community, and expand your knowledge of local plants and ecology,
• Prune your trees in a way that will improve their health and reduce future need to prune,
• Make walking and bicycling in our neighborhood more convenient, enjoyable, and safe,
• Keep our trees’ useful biomass and fertility in our neighborhood,
• Increase our living soil’s ability to bioremediate/filter pollutants,
• Enhance our soil’s ability to absorb and hold onto water—lessening flooding AND reducing water bills, and
• Maximize the amount of carbon we can beneficially sequester in our soils and trees.
Bring hat, work gloves, water bottle, and pruning tools if you have them (we will also have some for those without).
If you have trees in need of some pruning, prunings in need of chipping into mulch, or would like to participate, please contact:
Omar Ore-Giron, Dunbar/Spring resident and owner of Native Roots Landscaping, at nativeroots.az@gmail.com or (520) 425-9795.

Right-of-way footpath before pruning…

…and after pruning!

EARLY-BIRD REGISTRATION ENDS for Brad Lancaster with Watershed Management Group: Water-Harvesting Certification Course, March 5–11, 2018 —Tucson AZ
2018-01-05

Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters & Desert Harvesters: 22nd Annual Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Carbon Planting, November 18, 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-11-18 07:30 - 12:00
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Help green our streets and walkways with water- and mulch-harvesting rain gardens planted with native, food-bearing shade trees!
Such trees contribute to cooler neighborhood temperatures in summer; attract native song birds; reduce downstream flooding; beautify our community; sequester carbon; and clean our air, water, and soil.

Be part of the effort to amplify the oasis effect in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood!
22nd Annual Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Carbon Planting
Date: Saturday, November 18, 2017
Time: 7:30 am
Meeting spot: In front of 813 N 9th Ave
Description: Join Dunbar/Spring neighbors Brad Lancaster, Omar Ore-Giron, and other Neighborhood Foresters for demonstrations & training on the work we’ll do. Then help your neighbors—and get to know more of them!—as we plant rain, mulch, and trees within water-harvesting basins in the public rights-of-way along our streets.
TO GET READY…
** Sign up for Omar’s Water-Harvesting Basin-Creation Service:
Neighbor and landscaper Omar Ore-Giron is offering a water-harvesting-basin-digging service before the tree planting for just $30 per basin. This is an amazing deal! Trees planted with such basins grow to be healthier and larger, and have faster growth rates than those without such basins. Using his CanDig machine, Omar will create water-harvesting tree basins deep enough to harvest street runoff. (We’ll offer a curb-coring service the week after planting, to cut core holes in the curb, enabling to the street runoff to flow into the basins.) Omar must have all basin-digging (and coring) requests by November 12. Contact Omar at (520) 425-9795 or nativeroots.az@gmail.com to sign up to get your basin(s) dug.
** Tree-Order Deadline is Sunday, November 12!
To get your tree-order form(s): email Brad at brad@harvestingrainwater.com, or download them from www.DunbarSpring.org or the Native-Tree Order Forms page of Desert Harvesters’ website.

THIS EVENT IS A COLLABORATION OF:
Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters and Desert Harvesters

WMG with Brad Lancaster: Water-Harvesting Certification Course, October 30 – November 5, 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-10-30 - 2017-11-05
Photo courtesy of watershedmg.org
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Watershed Management Group’s Water Harvesting Design Certification Course provides professionals, educators, and community organizers with comprehensive instruction in water-harvesting systems design and construction.
Through a unique combination of hands-on and classroom instruction the course provides a thorough, on-the-ground understanding of the core practices in this increasingly popular field.
Fall 2017 Course
Dates: October 30 – November 5, 2017
Times: Classes generally run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Various locations around Tucson, Arizona
Early registration runs through September 5, 2017
To register and/or FMI, including meaning of certification, program requirements, cost, and a slate of recent course instructors (some of whom, e.g., Brad, will be teaching parts of the Fall 2017 course), visit WMG’s certification-course webpage.
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 system design
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.

Certification will teach you to:

Integrate water-harvesting systems with other design considerations (energy conservation, aesthetic design, food production, wildlife habitat, etc.)
Calculate runoff potential of catchment areas and run soil-percolation tests
Create a water budget and match water-harvesting systems with appropriate landscaping
Size, design, and build appropriate earthworks features for different applications (eg. infiltration basins, berms, swales)
Design greywater systems for laundry, bathroom sink, and bathroom shower water
Construct gravity-based greywater systems from laundry-machine wastewater to irrigate landscape
Design, size, and install plastic cisterns
Design water-harvesting systems to support small-scale food production (including earthworks design, cistern design and application, and soil improvements)
Design all of the above systems while incorporating safety and health considerations

To register and/or FMI, including meaning of certification, program requirements, cost, and a slate of recent course instructors (some of whom, e.g., Brad, will be teaching parts of the Fall 2017 course), visit WMG’s certification-course webpage.

Vail Preservation Society with Brad Lancaster: Community Event: Connect Past to Future, September 23, 2017 — Vail AZ
2017-09-23 08:00 - 11:00
Connect Past to Future in Historic Vail!

Vail Store and Post Office, ca. 1935. Image courtesy of the Vail Preservation Society.
This community event is an opportunity to engage with the living history of the unique town of Vail, Arizona. Participants can choose from a variety of activities ranging from making adobe bricks, learning passive & active water-harvesting and pollinator-friendly landscaping techniques from Brad Lancaster, playing the historic game of cornhole, attending historic-preservation presentations, learning about historic-preservation trades, to touring the 1908 Old Vail Post Office and the 1935 Shrine of Santa Rita in the Desert.
There will also be an Artist & Artisan Sale and a Plant Sale going on for the duration of the morning’s events.

Date: Saturday, September 23, 2017
Time: 8–11 am

Venue: Old Vail Post Office
Address: 13105 E Colossal Cave Road, Vail, Arizona (at the corner of Old Vail Road (map))

Cost: Free

Note: In addition to teaching about water harvesting, Brad will likely be part of the tours of the Santa Rita Shrine’s still-functioning water-harvesting system from the 1930s!

For additional information: Click the flyer below &/or
send an email to vailpreservationsociety@gmail.com

Click to visit the website of the Vail Preservation Society

Brad Lancaster, Ann Audrey, Rafael de Grenade, Barbara Eiswerth, Richard Fe Tom, and Jonathan Mabry: LEAF Network's Statewide Conference: Planning, Growing & Harvesting Edible Urban Forests, September 22–24, 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-09-22 - 2017-09-24
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Planning, Growing, and Harvesting
Edible Urban Forests
A Statewide Conference of Education, Community Involvement, and Local Tours
September 22–24, 2017
Tucson, Arizona
Presented by the LEAF Network and Tucson’s City of Gastronomy

CONFERENCE OVERVIEW
September 22
8 am – 5 pm
Methodologies and Templates for Planning, Growing, and Harvesting Edible Urban Forests
A day of education for technical and policy personnel from government, NGOs, and academic institutions and for the public. (Brad will be presenting at some point during this day and September 23)
Registration: $50
September 23
8:30 am – 4 pm
Community Engagement in Planning, Growing, and Harvesting Edible Urban Forests
A day of education and celebration for community members from Tucson and beyond. (Brad will be presenting at some point during this day and September 22)
Registration: $40
September 24
9 am – 1:15 pm
Tours of Edible Urban Forests
Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace Tour of Mission Garden
9–11 am
Registration: $10
Iskashitaa Tour of Edible Trees on the UA Campus
11:15 am – 1:15 pm
Registration: $10
Learn more and register at leafnetworkaz.org
Download the flyer here

Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters: FREE Hands-On Neighborhood Tree-Pruning & Mulching Workshop, September 2, 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-09-02 08:00 - 12:00
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FREE Hands-On Neighborhood Tree-Pruning
& Mulching Workshop
(plus, the opportunity to get your prunings chipped into mulch for an extremely reasonable donation)
DATE: Saturday, September 2, 2017
START TIME: 8 am
MEETING LOCATION: Dunbar/Spring Community Garden/Orchard space (NW corner of 11th Ave and University Blvd)
WHO’S INVITED: EVERYONE, no matter what neighborhood you live in
WHAT TO BRING: Hat, work gloves, water bottle, and pruning tools if you have them (we will also have some tools for those without)

After a pruning demonstration by a local certified arborist, we will then move to various parts of the neighborhood to get hands-on experience as we prune native and domesticated food-bearing trees in our neighborhood’s public rights-of-way.

Instructors:

Aleck Mackinnon, local certified Pedaling Arborist, assisted by
Brad Lancaster of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, and
Omar Ore-Giron of Native Roots Landscaping

Topics:

Best pruning times, techniques, and tools
How best to maintain City clearance standards for trees in public rights-of-way along footpaths and streets
How to reuse prunings (cut up with hand tools or chipped with chipper/shredder) as an asthetically-pleasing, water-conserving, fertility-enhancing mulch

Immediately after the pruning, we will turn the prunings into mulch with a chipper/shredder that will be following along behind the pruners. 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.
This is how to transform wasteful Brush & Bulky into resourceful Chipped & Mulchy!
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 accessible for all.
See our Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Walkability Study –> here.
Chipping service (by donation):
Turn “wastes” into resources, as you transform your prunings into mulch
Throughout the pruning workshop day, Omar Ore-Giron will be operating a rented industrial chipper-shredder to quickly turn prunings into mulch. To cover costs, he will be asking for a donation of $30 per property for those using the chipper services. This is an amazing deal, as this ervice would ordinarily cost well over $100 per property.

Pruning Requirements and Guidelines for Neighborhood Mulching Service in Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood

You must contact Omar (nativeroots.az@gmail.com, (520) 425-9795) by Friday, September 1, to let him know you want your prunings mulched. Suggested minimum donation is $30.
All public rights-of-way adjoining all properties must maintain/prune a continuous clear walkway a minimum of 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall, so two people can comfortably walk along the path side by side without having to duck under limbs. Violations are subject to a citation from the City of Tucson.
All piles of prunings left beside street curb (for chipping into mulch) should should include ONLY freshly pruned, green limbs 3” or less in diameter.
No old, dry dead wood will be chipped into mulch (this dulls the chipper blades too quickly).
Please pile branches so branch butts are all facing in the same direction. This helps ensure that the pile of prunings is not tangled, but rather is orderly and therefore easy to pull from to chip into mulch.
Wide branch “crotches” or “V’s” should be cut at their base, so the branch will fit into the chipper (no diameter can exceed 3 inches).
All piles must be on the street curbside before chipping equipment arrives on site.

This is a wonderful opportunity to:

Meet neighbors, build community, and expand your knowledge of local plants and ecology;
Prune your trees in a way that will improve their health, and reduce the future need to prune;
Make walking and bicycling in our neighborhood more convenient, enjoyable, and safe;
Keep our trees’ useful biomass and fertility in our neighborhood;
Increase our living soil’s ability to bioremediate/filter pollutants;
Enhance our soil’s ability to absorb and hold onto water, thereby lessening flooding AND reducing water bills; and
Maximize the amount of carbon we can beneficially sequester in our soils and trees.

Bring a hat, work gloves, water bottle, and
pruning tools if you have them (we will also have some for those without)
If you have trees in need of some pruning, prunings in need of chipping into mulch, or would like to participate, please contact: Omar Ore-Giron, Dunbar/Spring resident and owner of Native Roots Landscaping, at nativeroots.az@gmail.com
Sponsored by:
Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters
Desert Harvesters

Brad Lancaster & thirty-something others: Home Grown Food Summit, June 12–20, 2017 — Online
2017-06-12 - 2017-06-20
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Marjory Wildcraft’s 3rd Annual
Home Grown Food Summit
Dates: June 12–20, 2017
Venue: Online
Registration is required and begins May 29
Cost: Free
How it works: Each day of the Summit, starting at 9 am CDT, a selection of 5–6 presentations will be available for free for 24 hours. Altogether there will be over 38 presentations from experts including Brad Lancaster (greywater (June 18)), Joel Salatin (raising beef), Angie Silvera (donkeys for dairy), Geoff Lawton (permaculture & soils), Hanna Crum (kombucha), Sayer Ji (nightshades), Martin Payne (wild plants) and many more. Registered attendees will receive the complete schedule along with instructions for watching. For those who wish to have unlimited access to the videos, MP3s, and transcripts of all presentations, this package will be available for purchase.
FMI and registration here.

Brad Lancaster: "Planting the Rain," A One-Day Integrated Water-Harvesting Design Class, April 21, 2017 — Denver CO
2017-04-21 09:00 - 17:00
Join Brad for this one-day workshop, hosted by Denver Botanic Gardens as part of their Bonfils-Stanton Series:

PLANTING THE RAIN:
Principles, Practices, and Tips to Design and Implement Thriving Integrated Water-Harvesting Systems at Home &/or Throughout Your Neighborhood
Date: Friday, April 21, 2017
Time: 9 am – 4 pm
Cost: $59 (for DBG members: $56)

Class description:

Plant the rain before you plant your trees and other vegetation and you will boost production, enhance soil fertility, reduce flooding, conserve water, and create sustainable oases around your home and community infrastructure. Existing landscapes can be retrofitted to achieve similar benefits. Rain gardens and other small-scale water-harvesting earthworks are legal in Colorado and always have been—and they don’t cost any more than the price of a shovel. These rain-garden earthworks quickly infiltrate rainfall into the soil—where less moisture is lost to evaporation—while also reducing erosion. Living ‘pumps’ of vegetation then enable us the access that water. Now that Coloradans can legally harvest rainwater in tanks, too, we’ll show you how to integrate your tanks with your rain gardens to get the biggest bang for your buck. Come learn simple principles and tips to leverage greater success as you implement these highly effective systems.
During the class you will learn:

8 guiding principles for successful water harvesting
How to calculate how much water you can harvest
Many different options for the harvest of that water, and how to choose the best strategies for your site
How to integrate water-harvesting tanks with water-harvesting earthworks or rain gardens
Key elevation relationships for successful rain gardens
How to get your elevations right with a simple DIY water level
How to select and place the best multi-use plants within the three zones of your rain gardens to maximize success
Super-cheap and easy alternatives to drip irrigation to get your plants established
How to integrate greywater harvesting with your rain gardens
How to place your trees and shrubs to maximize your home’s free harvest of both winter sun (i.e., heat, power, and light) and summer shade (i.e., cooling)

For more information, download the Bonfils-Stanton Series program-overview flyer &/or the detailed version.
Register here.

Brad Lancaster: Public Lecture: Resource Harvesting for Dynamic Gardens and Neighborhoods: Simple and Effective Ways to Enhance the Natural Abundance of Your Home, Garden, and Beyond, April 20, 2017 — Denver CO
2017-04-20 18:00 - 20:30

Brad Lancaster with Warren Brush & Brenton Kelly: Water for Every Farm: Earthworks for Resiliency in an Era of Drought, April 5–8, 2017 — Hyder AZ
2017-04-05 - 2017-04-08
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Water for Every Farm:
EARTHWORKS FOR RESILIENCY IN AN ERA OF DROUGHT
April 5-8, 2017
In collaboration with Lush Cosmetics, join international educator Warren Brush, with a dynamic teaching team including Brad Lancaster as well as Brenton Kelly of Quail Springs Permaculture, at Jalisco Jojoba Farm in Hyder, Arizona. Learn about earthworks and hydration strategies for ecological farming, land restoration, water harvesting, and earth reparation for agro-ecosystem stability with a focus on dryland applications.

Worldwide, topsoil erosion averages 30 to 40 tons per hectare (2.5 acres) per year, which is 30- to 40- times faster than the replacement rate of topsoil. The need is growing daily for people with hands-on skills in hydrological restoration and the integration of farming utilizing the principles that lead to ecological stability. Whether you are working on your own landscape, farm, or as a consultant, this course will grow your skills in the appropriate design and construction of structures that will reduce erosion, increase productivity, harvest & store water, and create resiliency in the ecologies that sustain us.
Click for the course flyer, which includes a working overview of the schedule (subject to change)

Click to register

The program offers an overview of:

Ethics and principles of permaculture as applied to land restoration and regenerative design
Land-component identification
Natural patterning in farm application
Water-harvesting, drought-proofing, and erosion-mitigation systems applications
Earthworks & soil-renovation techniques and machinery applications
Planting structures and guild development
An emphasis on dryland strategies

The following systems will be explained and participants will be able to assist in surveying, mapping and construction of various elements of:

Swales
Soil armoring
Anti-evaporation structures
Water flow harvest structures
Dryland drains and roads
Erosion-mitigation structures

A major component of this course will be hands-on skill development where we will develop on-site earthworks with large earth-moving equipment:

Landform discovery and mapping
Water-flow calculation
Use of survey equipment
Soil testing for earthworks
Construction flagging
Appropriate earthworks system application for dryland context
Working appropriately with equipment operators
Equipment overview and application
Large swale development and systems linking
System planting and commissioning
Additional hydration strategies

Tuition Cost: $1050
*Financial assistance may be available for students and next-generation farmers

Click to register

For more information or if you have any additional questions, please contact Ana at ana@regenerativeearth.com.

Watershed Management Group w/ Brad Lancaster: Water-Harvesting Certification Course, March 13–19, 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-03-13 - 2017-03-19
Water Harvesting Certification-course curriculum overview

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 system design
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

Participants will learn how to:

Integrate water-harvesting systems with other design considerations (energy conservation, aesthetic design, food production, wildlife habitat, etc.)
Calculate runoff potential of catchment areas and run soil-percolation tests
Create a water budget and match water-harvesting systems with appropriate landscaping
Size, design, and build appropriate earthworks features for different applications (e.g., infiltration basins, berms, swales)
Design greywater systems for laundry, bathroom-sink, and bathroom-shower water
Construct gravity-based greywater systems from laundry-machine wastewater to irrigate landscape
Design, size, and install plastic cisterns
Design water-harvesting systems to support small-scale food production (including earthworks design, cistern design and application, and soil improvements)
Design all of the above systems while incorporating safety and health considerations

The Water Harvesting Design Certification course is designed and administered by WMG staff with assistance from professionals who teach and implement water-harvesting practices. Brad will lead a half-day session for this course.
Visit WMG’s website to view complete details &/or to register, or for contact info for questions.

Aleck MacKinnon, Brad Lancaster, and Omar Ore-Giron: FREE Hands-On Neighborhood Tree-Pruning & Mulching Workshop, February 11, 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-02-11 09:00 - 13:00
FREE Hands-On Neighborhood Tree-Pruning
& Mulching Workshop
plus, an opportunity to get your prunings chipped into mulch for an extremely reasonable donation
A well mulched rain- and greywater-harvesting basin. Mulch is regenerated by cutting up and dropping prunings from plants within the basin. This creates a sponge that more rapidly infiltrates harvested water, while reducing soil moisture loss to evaporation. Photo credit: Brad Lancaster
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Starts at 9 am, stay as long as you can or want
Meet at Dunbar/Spring Community Garden/Orchard (NW corner of 11th Ave & University Blvd)
After the demonstration, we will move to various parts of the neighborhood to get hands-on experience with Aleck as we prune native and domesticated food-bearing trees in our neighborhood’s public rights-of-way.
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 Landscaping—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.
Immediately after the pruning, we will turn the prunings into mulch with a chipper/shredder that will be moving through the neighborhood behind the pruners.
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.
This is how to transform wasteful Brush & Bulky
into resourceful Chipped & Mulchy
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.
See our Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Walkability Study
Sponsored by the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters,
Desert Harvesters, and the LEAF Network
Chipping Service (by donation): Turn “wastes” into resources, as you transform your prunings into mulch
Throughout the pruning-workshop day, Omar Ore-Giron will be operating a rented industrial chipper-shredder to quickly turn prunings into mulch. To cover costs he will be asking for a donation of $30 per property for those using the chipper services. This is an amazing deal, as this would ordinarily cost well over $100 per property.
Pruning Requirements and Guidelines for Neighborhood Mulching Service:
• Contact Omar (nativeroots.az@gmail.com, (520) 425-9795) by Friday, February 10, to let him know you want your prunings mulched. Suggested minimum donation is $30.
• All public rights-of-way adjoining all properties must maintain/prune a continuous clear walkway a minimum 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall, so two people can comfortably walk along the path side by side without having to duck under limbs. Violations are subject to a citation from the City of Tucson.
• All piles of prunings left beside street curb (for chipping into mulch) should contain ONLY freshly pruned green limbs 3” in diameter or less.
• No old, dry dead wood will be chipped into mulch, as this dulls the chipper blades too quickly.
• Pile branches so branch butts are all facing in the same direction. This helps ensure that the pile of prunings is not tangled, but rather is orderly and therefore easy to take apart to chip into mulch.
• Wide branch “crotches” or “V’s” should be cut at their base, so the branch will fit into the chipper (no diameter can exceed 3 inches).
• All piles must be on the street curbside before chipping service arrives on site.
Make walking, bicycling, and joyous romping in our neighborhood more convenient, enjoyable, and safe
This is a wonderful opportunity to:
• Meet neighbors, build community, and expand your knowledge of local plants and ecology
• Prune your trees in a way that will improve their health and reduce future need to prune
• Make walking and bicycling in our neighborhood more convenient, enjoyable, and safe
• Keep our trees’ useful biomass and fertility in our neighborhood
• Increase our living soil’s ability to bioremediate/filter pollutants
• Enhance our soil’s ability to absorb and hold onto water—lessening flooding AND reducing water bills, and
• Maximize the amount of carbon we can beneficially sequester in our soils and trees.
Bring hat, work gloves, water bottle, and pruning tools if you have them (we will also have some for those without).
If you have trees in need of some pruning, prunings in need of chipping into mulch, or would like to participate, please contact:
Omar Ore-Giron, Dunbar/Spring resident and owner of Native Roots Landscaping, at nativeroots.az@gmail.com or (520) 425-9795.

Brad Lancaster with Dan Dorsey & Sonoran Permaculture Guild: 22nd Annual Permaculture Design Course, 5 weekends in February & March 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-02-04
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A Tucson tradition!
Spring 2017 Permaculture Design Course
This course happens over five weekends every February and March. Dates for the upcoming Spring 2017 course are the following five weekends:
February 4 & 5,
February 11 & 12,
February 25 & 26,
March 11 & 12, and
March 18 & 19
Class generally runs from 9 am to 5:30 pm each day.
The cost for the course is $725 plus an optional class book fee of $42 for a copy of Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison. Also highly recommended are Brad Lancaster’s Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2.
A limited number of partial scholarships are available.
For the last twenty years this course has been full with a waiting list, so early registration is encouraged. To give a high quality educational experience, we limit the size of the class to eighteen participants. Contact Dan, the course registrar, at dorsey@dakotacom.net or 520-624-8030 to register and/or to receive the syllabus and detailed FAQs for the course. Some scholarship funds are available.
This Permaculture certification course covers all aspects of sustainable design with a Southwest drylands flavor, including a balance of hands-on experience, classroom time, and design practicum. Dynamic exercises encourage pattern recognition, noticing the links between the plants and animals, climate, and land forms that make up natural ecosystems. The course focuses on dryland communities with a strong urban and semi-rural emphasis, addressing individual site and neighborhood “problems” such as stormwater flooding. Students learn to read the landscape, to map and analyze energies flowing through a site, and to develop integrated designs for sustainable systems. The weekend format of the course makes it easier for people who hold a week day job to attend and promotes better integration of the course material into daily life. The course closely follows the standard 72-hour format developed by Bill Mollison and others.
Course topics include agroforestry, appropriate technology, building design, design principles and patterning, site analysis, drylands-gardening principles, ecosystem restoration, philosophy and ethics of Permaculture, regenerative community economics, soils and erosion control, village and community design, water harvesting, invisible structures, and many other topics.
The classroom site is in the Central Tucson area and at other Permaculture sites in the Tucson area. Much of the class is held outdoors. This course is taught and facilitated by Dan Dorsey, Brad Lancaster, and Barbara Rose, each with two decades of Permaculture experience, as well as our many extraordinary associate SPG teachers. See the profiles for the core team teachers here. See pictures from previous courses and workshops here.

Brad Lancaster: Regenerative Rights-of-Way: Planting and Stewarding Stormwater to Enliven Oases in Our Urban Environment, A Public Talk, January 24, 2017 — Petaluma CA
2017-01-24 18:30 - 20:30
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When: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 | 6:30–8:30 pm
Where: Petaluma Community Center, 320 N McDowell Blvd, Petaluma, California
Cost: $10 entry fee, but no one will be turned away due to lack of funds. Click here to purchase your ticket(s).
[BREAK]
In this energetic presentation, Brad will share how to re-design our community commons and streetscapes by adopting regenerative rainwater solutions, rather than focusing on stormwater problems.
In the urban environment, streetscapes are our public land, our commons. And they are abundant! In fact, one-third of a typical city’s footprint is pavement for motor vehicles. These streetscapes are usually designed as drains, rapidly ridding a community of obstructions to traffic flow, as well as perceived “problems” such as rainwater, stormwater, and organic matter. This design often leads to ever-increasing costs for importation of water, flood control, pollution control, heat-island abatement, climate-change mitigation, and health problems.
But a simple shift in perception and design can enable us to see and utilize rainwater, stormwater, organic matter, fertility, and even some obstructions to traffic flow as free, local resources. These resources can be passively harvested to enhance local water supplies, control flooding, filter pollutants, grow cool-islands, mitigate the effects of climate change, and improve health—while generating more resources and more life. The key is to see and enhance the free abundance that we already have by transforming more of our built systems into living systems that can regenerate themselves and our communities.
Brock Dolman,Water Wizard and Program Director at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, will also be contributing to this event by tying together local stormwater issues and solutions. Brock has taught Permaculture for many years and has consulted on regenerative project design and implementation internationally. His passion for this work allows him to provide the audience with adaptation strategies for a dynamically changing planet.
*After his presentation, Brad will be selling, and signing his Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond books for those who may be interested in purchasing.

This event organized by Daily Acts, with additional sponsorship from Russian River Watershed Association, Sonoma County Water Agency, The City of Petaluma, and Wyatt Irrigation Supply.

Brad Lancaster: Keynote Speaker at 4th Biannual Russian River-Friendly Landscaping Event "Supply in the Sky: Stormwater as a Resource," January 24, 2017 — Santa Rosa CA
2017-01-24 07:30 - 12:00
When: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 | 7:30 am – 12 noon
Where: City of Santa Rosa Utilities Field Operations, 35 Stony Point Rd, Santa Rosa, California
Cost: Free. Click here to register and secure your spot.
[BREAK]
The Russian River Watershed Association is pleased to present the 4th Biannual Russian River-Friendly Landscaping Event “Supply in the Sky: Stormwater as a Resource,” in Santa Rosa. Join them on Tuesday, January 24, for practical advice on utilizing stormwater as a valuable resource to enhance the ecological health of local landscapes and water supply.
From precipitation to percolation, each event speaker will focus on different aspects of stormwater in landscaping. Brad Lancaster, keynote speaker and author of the award-winning book series, Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, will present Planting the Rain: Principles, Practices, and Tips for Water-Harvesting Earthworks and Rain Gardens. His books will also be available for sale and signing. Additional speakers include Water Resources Engineer Angelique Fabbiani-Leon (Department of Water Resources), Water Systems Designer and Cartographer Sebastian Bertsch (Permaculture Artisans), and Environmental Specialist Sean McNeil (City of Santa Rosa).
A continental breakfast will be provided.
For additional information on Russian River-Friendly Landscaping, please visit:
www.rrwatershed.org/project/russian-river-friendly-landscape-guidelines

Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters: 1st Annual Neighborhood Curb Coring, Week of January 16, 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-01-16
1st Annual Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Curb Coring… to direct street runoff to street-side tree basins for free irrigation and flood control
The week of January 16, 2017, Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters will work with the City of Tucson and a local contractor to cut 4″-diameter curb core holes through the street curb to direct street runoff to existing street-side tree basins in the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood.
Would you like curb core(s) for trees and basins in the public right-of-way adjoining your property?
If so, you must already have water-harvesting basins in place, and agree to maintain the basins, the trees, and a continuous minimum 5-foot wide pedestrian pathway (pruned clear to a minimum height of 7 feet).
If you do not have such basins, we can help you make them in our neighborhood’s next Annual Rain and Tree Planting in the fall of 2017, which will be followed up with the 2nd Annual Neighborhood Curb Coring.
Review the Curb-Core/Curb-Cut Maintenance Agreement to get a sense of the commitment required.
To sign up for curb coring, contact us by January 1, 2017.
Costs
Curb-coring costs are $30 per core hole (this is a reduced price thanks to the volume discount we are getting from the contractor).
Permit fees are a $50 curb-coring permit fee, and a $74 barricade fee per curb-coring address. However, we can reduce this fee for neighbors getting curb cores and sharing the same street and block, because in that instance the permit fees will be per curb-coring street/block, since that length of street will be counted as the address. So get your neighbors involved!
You can also get half of these costs rebated if you apply for the city’s rainwater-harvesting rebate program.
To sign up for curb coring, contact us by January 1, 2017.
Contact neighborhood foresters Omar Ore-Giron at (520) 425-9795, or Brad Lancaster at brad@harvestingrainwater.com.
We will then help you with the permitting process, marking all underground utilities, and coordinating the work with the licensed contractor.
You can also contact us to become one of our neighborhood’s volunteer foresters, and/or to make a donation to our forestry effort.

Licensed contractor making curb core into streetside basin

4″-diameter curb core

Brad Lancaster, Teré Fowler-Chapman, Stephen Duneier, Karyn Garvin, Jitesh Vaswani, Danielle McFarlin, Adiba Nelson, Molly Hottle, & Tony Ford: TEDxTucson's Imagine!, January 14, 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-01-14 09:00 - 17:00
Date: Saturday, January 14, 2017
Time: 9 am – 5 pm
Venue: Berger Performing Arts Center
Address: 1200 W. Speedway Blvd., Tucson, Arizona 85745
More information, including link to tickets, at TEDxTucson

About TEDxTucson, from their website:
The world often requires people to think in terms of black and white. Rigid, unbendable choices seem to close us in sometimes. After a while, life seems more monochrome than ever. But we live in a world of color, and texture, and music!
This year, we at TEDxTucson challenge you to imagine our new world. We invite you to imagine, to question, to be vulnerable, to doubt, and to gain new perspective. Expose yourself to the ideas that help create our chaotic—but dazzling—world of color.
Imagine! is our annual conference where we bring together Brilliant Minds and Intriguing Ideas on One Stage. You’ll meet a diverse and curated collection of inspired speakers, sharing their ideas on topics ranging from virtual reality to the power of poetics, from becoming present to sustainability in the desert.
TEDxTucson creates unique community events featuring diverse, multi-generational thought leaders from all walks of life. We support contemporary themes and highly interactive learning. We facilitate community discussions so that, together, we can envision the impact of emerging ideas.
We will begin our journey together at 9 am on January 14 at the Berger Theater where we will listen to incredible speakers, play together, talk together, explore ideas, and eat! We will experience oversized toys, collaborative art and music. Connect, explore, network, and enjoy!
TEDxTucson has become a major source for brilliant ideas and innovative change. We create local experiences based on the original TED conference, an event where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged. Today, TED covers almost all topics that are shaping our future—from science, to business, to global issues.

Brad Lancaster: Guided Home and Neighborhood Tour Showcasing Integrated Harvests of Water, Sun, Wind, Shade, Fertility, Carbon, and Community, December 22, 2016 — Tucson AZ
2016-12-22 10:00 - 12:30
Brad Lancaster, author of the award-winning, best-selling book series, Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, will lead this 2.5-hour tour of his home property (the only home property that will be toured) and sites within the public rights-of-ways of the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood.
A portion of the proceeds from the tour will help fund ongoing integrated water-harvesting, native food-tree planting, traffic-calming, and education efforts within the public realm of the neighborhood.
Tickets are $20 per person—please see Fine Print down below before purchasing:

Select multiple tickets in shopping cart:

One Ticket $20.00 USD

Some of the many features to be included in the tour:

Low-tech, low-cost, gravity-fed (no pumps) potable rainwater-harvesting system providing for household water needs (including drinking water)

Rainwater-harvesting tanks doubling as summer sun- and winter shade-harvesting systems, privacy/property fences, fire breaks, and more

Passive, gravity-fed greywater-harvesting systems that reuse all household drainwater for safe irrigation of food plants that also help passively shade/cool buildings in summer while retaining the sun’s heat and light gain in winter.

Flood-controlling, heat-island abating, and carbon-sequestering public gardens and orchards irrigated ONLY with on-site rainwater

A tiny-house one-car-garage-to-cottage conversion resulting in a passively heated and cooled garottage

Numerous strategies on how to maximize the harvest of winter sun AND summer shade in a way that reduces your water consumption, carbon emissions, and costs—these strategies work in ALL seasons, rather than working in only one season at the expense of others

Sculpture that celebrates the seasonally changing path of the sun and the design of homes and gardens that make the most of the winter sun and summer shade

Solar cooking, power, hot water, heating, lighting, and clothes drying

Low-tech, low-cost, legal site-built compost toilet

Self-regenerating living mulch machines that naturally bioremediate pollutants from street runoff

Novel urban-wildlife habitat such as pollinator fences and shade screens

Neighborhood-history sign project

Neighborhood-scale water harvesting, native food-tree planting, traffic calming, and art—all celebrating and enhancing the story and potential of Place

For visual previews of some of the above features:
Click to enlarge the images below, check out these sun- and shade-harvesting and water-harvesting & cistern set-up videos, &/or read this enhanced stormwater-harvesting blog post.

Also available for sale at the tour will be signed copies of Brad’s books (including the newly revised and expanded second edition of Volume 1), specially priced for tour-goers at $20 for Volume 1 and $30 for Volume 2, as well as kid-sized Rainwater Harvesting t-shirts.
**The Fine Print**

Unless maximum attendance is reached before 8 am MST on December 22, tickets may be purchased via PayPal up until that time. (PayPal will not allow you to purchase tickets after maximum attendance has been reached.)
After 7 pm MST on Tuesday, December 20, ticket fees are non-refundable; your ticket purchase becomes a donation (in the event you are not able to attend or sell/give away your ticket).
Tickets are transferable (you may give/sell your ticket to another person). When you arrive for the tour, simply provide the name of the original ticket-purchaser and we’ll check you in on our tour list.
After you complete your ticket purchase, you will receive an automated confirmation email from PayPal and be brought back to this page. When one of us humans sees your purchase, we’ll generate a second confirmation email via PayPal. Thanks for your interest and support!

Brad Lancaster: Water-Harvesting Presentation & Sun-and-Shade Hands-on Workshop at ECHO International Agriculture Conference, November 15–18, 2016 — Fort Myers FL
2016-11-15 - 2016-11-18

Brad Lancaster: Water Harvesting in Urban Environments at Tijuana Innovadora 2016, November 10, 2016 — Tijuana BC México
2016-11-10 11:00 - 12:00
Tijuana Innovadora 2016: November 3–10, 2016
Click to visit event website where you can view the full conference program and more
Brad’s presentation date: November 10, 2016
Time: 11 am–noon
Venue: World Trade Center, Sala Veracruz
Address: Paseo del Parque #18025, Zona Río Tercera Etapa, Tijuana, Baja California, CP 22654
Water Harvesting & Native Plants in Urban Environments
Overpaved, drain-like urban environments eject precious local resources such as rainwater, creating the ‘need’ to import water from afar. This creates liabilities such as flooding, water shortages, pollution, and hotter temperatures paired with higher energy consumption. But we can create sponge-like urban environments that harvest resources such as rainwater, stormwater, greywater, and condensate as close to their sources as possible. In so doing, we turn would-be liabilities into assets such as street orchards that control flooding and produce native food; more resilient and more numerous water resources; living filters of soil, water, and air; and temperature-reducing, energy-conserving and -producing oases for native plants and wildlife. Examples, from small- to large-scale, from ancient to contemporary, from the Middle East and around the world, will be presented.
Cost for Brad’s talk: MX$250
Visit the Tijuana Innovadora website for more…

Brad Lancaster & Others: ITKI-UNESCO Food & Water in Arid Lands Conference: Dialogues Across Contemporary and Traditional Knowledge, November 4–5, 2016 — Tucson AZ
2016-11-04 - 2016-11-05

Brad Lancaster, Omar Ore-Giron, Ezra Roati, Rocky Yosek, et ali: 21st Annual Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Carbon Planting, October 29, 2016 — Tucson, AZ
2016-10-29 07:30 - 12:00

Steve Carson, Bill Zeedyk, Craig Sponholtz, and Brad Lancaster: Watershed-Restoration Training Workshop—Beyond the Basics, October 25–27, 2016 — Altar Valley AZ
2016-10-25 - 2016-10-27
The Altar Valley Conservation Alliance invites you to join them for this team-taught workshop they are hosting with generous support from the Freeport-McMoRan Foundation.
When: October 25–27, 2016
Where: Altar Valley, AZ
Cost: $100 per person
The workshop will be taught by instructors Steve Carson, Bill Zeedyk, Craig Sponholtz, and Brad Lancaster, and targets people with basic training or experience doing low-tech watershed-restoration work who wish to advance and broaden their skills. The Elkhorn/Las Delicias Project, installed in 2012 in Sonoran Desert grassland, will serve as the outdoor classroom for a 3-day workshop that will combine observation, discussion, and hands-on work as a whole group—plus break-out sessions in small groups led by the various instructors. Teaching modules will include: Day 1 (morning): Planning and installation; Day 1 (afternoon): Monitoring and evaluation; Day 2: Repair and maintenance; and Day 3: Design and build.
Space is limited, so register soon! More information—including details about food and camping—is in the registration form, which can be found here.
If you wish to pay by credit card, please do so via PayPal at the Alliance’s Support/Donate page and make a note of it on your registration form.

For questions about registration, contact Sherie Steele at alliance@altarvalleyconservation.org.

For more information about the workshop, contact Mary Miller at mary@altarvalleyconservation.org.

Brad Lancaster & Craig Sponholtz: Free Public Talk: Integrated Local Harvests, October 25, 2016—Three Points (Tucson) AZ
2016-10-25 17:30 - 20:00
Integrated Local Harvests
Free Public Talk (RSVP via link below) &
Optional Dinner ($10 prepaid via link below)
October 25, 2016
5:30–8pm
Venue: Robles Elementary School
Address: 9875 South Sasabe Road, Tucson, AZ 85736
Presenters: Brad Lancaster & Craig Sponholtz
The Altar Valley Conservation Alliance is hosting a free lecture by Brad Lancaster and Craig Sponholtz. Dinner ($10 prepaid) is also available prior to the talk–if you would like to join folks for this meal, please be sure to pay in advance via the link below.
Integrated Local Harvests: Simple and Effective Ways to Enhance the Natural Abundance of Your Home, Community, and the Larger World
This dynamic presentation shares patterns and strategies to harvest, integrate, and enliven free local resources such as rain-, grey-, and stormwaters, plus soil fertility, in a way that reduces erosion and maintenance, while freely growing more vegetation, fodder for livestock, and food for us. Scarcity is re-visioned into abundance simply through creative cycling and utilization of what is already at hand. Costly and consuming habits and infrastructure, disconnected from their surroundings, are reoriented and reconnected to maximize enriching opportunities.
You’ll see many examples of such transformation, including how once-dying wetlands and creek flows are being regenerated with simple hand-built structures made of on-site materials; how such structures are enhancing parts of the Altar Valley; how dirt roads are being reworked to stay dry and freely irrigate adjoining pasture, and how once-blighted, overheated neighborhood streets are being rejuvenated into thriving greenbelts of water, people, wildlife, art, food, and celebration by planting once-drained stormwater, seed, and yard prunings.
This talk is both an invitation for you to engage and partner with your natural surroundings and community, and a map showing you the way—by planting the rain, growing fertility, and more—to live as one of your community’s inspirational sparks!
RSVP for Integrated Local Harvests: Click to RSVP.
If you would like to ADD DINNER, $10 MUST BE PREPAID at this site, and you will receive a printed ticket.
Questions? Please e-mail kyle@altavalleyconservation.org.
Download the flyer here.

Brad Lancaster & Colleagues: Watershed Management Group's Water-Harvesting Certification Course, October 17–23, 2016 — Tucson AZ
2016-10-17 - 2016-10-23

Brad Lancaster & Neighbors: Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Tour, October 16, 2016 — Tucson AZ
2016-10-16 13:00 - 15:00
Date: October 16, 2016
Time: 1–3 pm
Cost: $5 per person on the day of the event
Tickets: Pick up yours at the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Garden (NW corner of 11th Ave and University)
50% of all proceeds will benefit Caridad Community Kitchen!
About the tour:
Invite your friends and family and come out for a fun-filled event to showcase our neighborhood to the greater Tucson community! We will have homes, gardens, local businesses, public art, and water-harvesting features on the tour. Self-guided tour on foot, or bicycle tour provided by BICAS. Neighborhood stories by author Aloma J. Barnes at the Dunbar School Project!
Brad will be welcoming ticket-holding tour-goers to the public right-of-way adjoining his home from 1–3 pm to describe and answer questions about the variety of resource-harvesting strategies in place around the Lancaster property and in the neighborhood’s public commons.
NOTE: Tour-goers will not have access to the Lancaster property, only what is visible from the public right-of-way. Folks interested in touring the property itself can sign up for future tours of the site later this year which will be posted on this site, www.HarvestingRainwater.com.
Contact Dunbar/Spring tour organizer Ezra Roati for more information about the overall tour.
Like/share on Facebook!
Big thanks to our generous sponsors:
Caridad Community Kitchen
Cirrus Visual Communication
COPE Community Services, Inc.
Desert Survivors Inc.
Originate
Southwest Urban Realty & Development
and The Whistle Stop Depot

Brad Lancaster & Fellow Storytellers: Odyssey Storytelling Theme: "Natural," October 6, 2016 — Tucson AZ
2016-10-06 19:00 - 21:00

CANCELLED: Brad Lancaster: Woodbine Ecology Center's Praxis of Ecological Design Series, August 5–7, 2016 — Sedalia CO
2016-08-05 18:00 - 2016-08-07 16:00
This workshop has been cancelled. Please visit Woodbine’s website for more about their center and future programming.

TNC Docents: Free Tour of TNC's Water-Harvesting Features — Tucson AZ
2016-07-16 08:00 - 09:00
The Nature Conservancy’s rainwater-harvesting project includes retrofitting the onsite buildings and the surrounding landscape to capture as much as possible of the approximately 11 inches of annual rainfall on the campus and adjacent areas. The retrofitting involves both active and passive rainwater-harvesting techniques. The Nature Conservancy and its partners see the grounds as a community asset where one can learn about sustainability and common-sense approaches to sustainable design and practices.

The one-hour tour is free to the public. Time is 8 am for all dates. Meet at the front entrance (NE corner) of the building at 1510 E Ft Lowell Road. Groups may schedule tours at times other than those regularly scheduled. For more information on any of these tours, please call 520 547-3437 or send an email to dboone@tnc.org.
May through October 2016 tours are all at 8 a.m. on the 1st Thursday and the 3rd Saturday of the month.
Thursday, July 7
Saturday, July 16
Thursday, August 4
Saturday, August 20
Thursday, September 1
Saturday, September 17
Thursday, October 6
Saturday, October 15
