RAINWATER HARVESTING
Community Demonstration Project
Read the full article with photos at Ecological Landscaping Association website. In October, 2011, we volunteered our home to be a demonstration site for a Rainwater Harvestiing Project. The project was sponsored by the Ecological Landscaping Association, and was coordinated by Golden Love of Love's Landscaping.
The crisis of global climate chaos, with its increasing probabliity of both floods and drought, makes the conscious treatment of rainwater a community priority. The goals of the project were to: Protect the Bay from runoff Pollution; Divert water from the municipal storm drain system; Conserve water and reduce our water bill; Recharge the ground water; Use rain water for irrigation; Control moisture around the foundation of the house.
The 2 bedroom, 1 bath stucco cottage built in the 60's on the Westside of Santa Cruz near the ocean has had an ongoing moisture intrusion problem. Like many of the houses in this neighborhood, the downspouts simply drop the rain at the foundation, where the stucco walls wick it up. Sometimes, during periods of heavy rain over the years we've lived in the house, we managed to install plastic sleves around the downspouts to direct the rainwater onto the city street. But we never felt that was the best or most appropriate solution to the question of what to do with the rainwater falling on our roof.
Knowing that an important tenant of permaculture is to keep the water on the property, we wanted to find a way to get the water away from the foundation of our house without diverting it into the municipal storm drain system. Our mentor, Golden Love, did a soil analysis of our property, calculated the amount of rainwater that would be coming off our roof in a heavy rain, and then recommended that we install an "infiltration gallery" - a 6 foot deep pit, dug in the front yard to receive all the water. Rainwater from the 3 downspouts on the west side of the house were diverted to this gravel filled infiltration gallery. This water will percolate into the soil and water the landscaping. The two downspouts on the east side of the house feed into a smaller infiltraion gallery. The backyard downspout flows to a Rain Barrel which will be used to water the backyard garden.
A graduate from the Santa Cruz Homeless Garden Project was hired to help prepare the site, including digging the pit and trenches. On October 29th, Community members took a class on Rainwater Harvesting taught by Golden Love. As part of the class, they had a walking tour of homes in the neighborhood with Rainwater Harvesting systems already in place. Then, at Bluebird Creek Cottage, volunteers had a hands-on experience assembling the drainage system, doing some heavy lifting of rock into the pit, and calculating water flow and slope. Ground was broken on October 17th. To finish the project, on November 10th, the copper gutters had to be slightly altered by a professional gutter installer, who also hung our new rainchain. The next day we had a lively rainstorm to test the system. Our little cottage kept its feet nice and dry, and we contributed no water to the rising flood in the street.
Rainwater Harvesting Community Resources
Itemized Project Costs
Photos
Watch an informative and inspiring video about how TreePeople transformed a blighted L.A. neighborhood into a paradise through RainWater Harvesting!
A very big thanks to all of those who participated in this project to conserve our vital water resource!