Translator: Elena Symeonidou Reviewer: Denise RQ
So, growing up here in Tucson Arizona,
my favourite game was flood.
So I would go out in the sand box,
and I would spend hours and hours
building these elaborate cities of sand
and then, I'd turn on the hose,
and I would wipe it all out with a catastrophic flood.
I can still remember the screams of all the imaginary people,
"Please help me!" and then--
but don't worry, no one was hurt
because at just the last moment,
before their part of the crumbling city fell into the churning waters,
I imagined lifting them all up to safety.
And then, when all was destroyed, I would, of course, rebuild
and I'd do it again and again because I loved this game.
But I think it might have affected the water bill
(Laughter)
because it wasn't too long before I was banned
from using hose water in the sand box.
I was devastated at first,
but then determined to find a different way.
And I did.
Because I realized there was another water source,
an ignored one, a free one:
the rain!
Because, you see, we had this dry creek bed or 'arroyo' in our front yard.
That thing was dry most of the year, but when there was a big rain,
that thing would flow like a torrent.
So, I was like, "Alright!
I'll build my sand cities anew in these dry creek beds."
Then all I had to do is wait for rain.
And I waited and waited.
But eventually, the storm clouds built
and then, when the rains came, the floods were epic.
I mean, there was a volume of water
that far exceeded anything you could get from a hose.
So like, "Oh yeah! I don't need no stinking hose!
I've the rain! The flood is on again!"
(Laughter)
I got pretty passionate about that.
(Laughter)
While I no longer play the game of flood,
that lesson of how much potential we have in the rain, that has never left me.
it continues to spark my work and play to this day.
So, here in the desert community of Tucson, Arizona,
we only get 11 inches of rain a year.
Yet, more rain falls on the surface area of Tucson any year
than all of Tucson and all its inhabitants consume of municipal water in a year.
Do you get that?
More rain falls on Tucson in a year that Tucson consumes of water a year.
We already have all that we need,
and it's delivered to us free of charge from the sky.
But you wouldn't know it
because we drain the vast majority of that right out of the system.
So, let's look at that.
In 1904, the Santa Cruz River still flowed year round
through Tucson, Arizona.
Not just after a big rain but all year round.
We still had these sponge like forests along the river
that would absorb that rain
and plant in the living soils.
Compare that to today and due to over-pumping our ground water,
we have killed the river and the sponge-like forests
that used to line it and help recharge it and the ground water.
And then, we replaced those sponges of vegetation
with pavement of streets, buildings, and compacted bare earth,
which leads to much more flooding,
because now the water runs off those hard surfaces
much more quickly than it did before.
To replace all that rain that we drain,
we then pump water 300 miles and 3,000 feet height and elevation
from the Colorado River to Tucson and Phoenix
at a cost of over 80 million dollars a year,
and the death of the Colorado River's downstream stretch.
I hate this story
because it's not unique to Tucson, I see it almost everywhere.
We squander the natural abundance that we already have,
and we spend vast amounts of resources trying to replace that which we squandered
by taking it from other people and other places,
worsening scarcity for everyone.
So, what do we do?
It turns out that everywhere in the world that has a dry climate
or even a wet climate with just a dry season
has a rich history and traditions of investing, of harvesting the rain
as opposed to draining it.
This was largely forgotten
when we got mechanical pumps that could move water uphill,
so I was pretty much unaware of the potential of harvesting rainwater
until I had the opportunity to travel to Africa
and visit family and then explore on my own.
It was in the driest region of Zimbabwe
that I got to meet the water farmer, Mr Zephanaiah Phiri Maseko,
who taught himself, then his family, and countless others including myself
on how to harvest the rain,
or as he says, plant the rain.
He went down this path, when many years ago, he found himself
struggling to support his family of eight with no job and no income.
How was he to feed them?
So he turned to the only two things
he felt he had to get out of the situation:
an eroding seven-acre parcel of land
and the bible, which he used as a gardening manual of sorts.
Because you see, he was so inspired
by the story of Genesis and the garden of Eden,
that he got to thinking,
"Well, I should grow such a garden.
And the water resources that will sustain it."
How do you go about doing that?
The same way we all can:
with long and thoughtful observation.
So. every time it rained, he'd be out there
running, watching, seeing what was going on.
And, as he said, getting very wet but being very happy.
(Laughter)
Because he was learning.
He saw the areas where things were not working,
such as where the rain did not infiltrate the soil,
but instead flowed off too quickly causing erosion and downstream flooding.
He learned how to fix that by observing what was working,
such as where there were rocks or vegetation
perpendicular to the slope and the flow,
slowing down, spreading out that flow, allowing sediment to drop out,
moisture to linger, seeds to germinate, and vegetation to grow.
So a living sponge started to form on where was previously a barren drain.
So the creation of such living sponges, that's what it means to plant the rain.
So Mr Phiri, did this from the very top of his watershed
and the beginning of the water flow all the way to the bottom of his land.
Everywhere slowing, spreading, and infiltrating the water.
And by doing this though, it was much more manageable,
and he could move all the water with the free power of gravity;
no pumps needed.
Here he would direct the runoff from this road to the adjoining basin,
lined with multi-use vegetation,
turning this into this.
And so, once the water infiltrated into the soil, the soil was the tank,
and water would be lost in much lower degree to evaporation.
Then he could access the water from the tank of the soil
through living pumps of vegetation,
and their fruit, their shelter, their livestock fodder, and more.
And by doing this, even in a drought year,
the Phiris were able to get two to three harvests from their crops,
when others not planting the rain were lucky to get just one.
And they could also access the rain they planted
in the form of their rising ground water,
which created seasonal springs and filled their hand-dug wells.
And the rain the Phiris planted, it also filled the wells
of their adjoining and downstream neighbors.
And so, the planting of rain started to catch on
because people saw that there were others in the community
whose wells went dry when they weren't planting the rain.
Why the difference?
The difference is those whose wells were drying,
just kept taking water but never gave back,
whereas the Phiris made sure
they kept putting more back into the system than they took out.
So, it caught on, and I got to visit dozens of other farmers
inspired or taught by the Phiris
who had likewise converted dying drains to vital sponges.
I was inspired by this that I told Mr. Phiri about how freaked out I was
about the water situation in my community
and how I no longer wanted to contribute
to the depleting waters by consuming those depleting waters,
and I wanted to leave
and asked him for his advice.
To which point, he slapped me on the shoulder, and he said,
"Well, you cannot leave,
because if you run from your problems,
you're just going to plant and grow problems everywhere you go.
So, you have to try and figure out how to turn those problems into solutions.
And if you succeed at that,
well, you'll have the ability to do that wherever you find yourself."
That challenge, that resonated to my core.
I knew that this was a challenge that could be met
because I'd seen it
in the example the Phiris lived and those that they had inspired.
I just had to figure out how to tweak things
to fit the unique conditions and context of my home.
So, I returned home to this:
a dry, degraded eighth-of-an-acre property
that my brother and I had just purchased north of downtown Tucson.
And how did we begin?
Well, the same as the Phiris.
With observation.
So in the first big rain, we are out there
running, and watching, seeing what was going on.
And we were losing so much water to the street,
But worse, plenty more water was flowing into the house.
(Laughter)
I mean, I was the victim of my childhood game of flood.
(Laughter)
So, my brother and I are like,
"Man, we've got to turn the game around, man!
Turn flood into harvest!"
So, we did that, and we diverted the water away from the house
into these sponge-like basins with mulch and vegetation,
which would rapidly absorb it.
And then, in times of no rain, we redirected our household Grey water,
that once used wash water from the showers, laundry, or sinks
to the landscape
turning that waste water into another free resource water.
In this way, we found that all we needed to grow the vegetation that would shade,
shelter, and beautify the house was the water draining from the house.
This enabled us to break a needless addiction
ubiquitous across the US.
So it turns out the average single family household in the US
consumes 30 to 50% of its drinking water to irrigate their landscape.
This is what happens when we use hose water or drip-irrigation water
to replace the rainwater we wastefully drain away.
So, we don't do that.
Instead, we plant food-bearing, native and climate-appropriate plants,
than can thrive just on our harvested rainwater and Grey water.
We don't throw away or vacuum our leaves.
Leaves are called leaves because we are supposed to leave them!
(Laughter)
So, we harvest them, along with cut up prunings,
in our water harvesting basins creating these fertile sponges of mulch
which rapidly absorb the water,
so we don't lose it to evaporation and nor do we have puddles or mosquitoes.
We don't have flooding either, because we make sure
we always have an overflow route, should there be a massive storm
that exceeds what we can hold and infiltrate.
And even that overflow water is used as a resource,
because we direct that to multiple downstream strategies.
So, in eight years, we were able to turn this into this,
and no drinking water is used,
no city water, no imported water, no well water.
Only rainwater and the runoff from the pathways and the street.
And because we planted so many native plants,
many or dozens of native bird species have returned, and pollinators,
and the shade from the trees drops summer temperatures by ten degrees,
dropping the cooling cost of adjoining homes as well.
And it's caught on at such a degree with many more neighbors doing this
that we now have many people walking and bicycling through,
which has dropped crime.
Because now there's more friendly eyes on the street.
And within the street,
we noticed that the street gutter would flow like a creek in a big rain,
so we cut the street gutter
to direct the street runoff to street-side basins.
Now, this was illegal at the time, OK?
(Laughter)
So, we cut the curb on a Sunday when no one from the city was watching.
(Laughter)
But the results were amazing because we found
that every street everywhere can be a shaded corridor
of native food trees and other life,
irrigated with nothing more than the rain falling on the street,
controlling flooding at the same time.
So, we went to the city to legalize and enhance the practice.
And then we got it incentivized, and now it's even mandated
in new city road construction and renovation.
(Applause)
This, this advocacy work is key.
This advocacy work to change practice, policy, and law
Because without a will, there is no way.
So, to further spark that will, I wrote and published how-to books,
did countless talks, and with others did workshops,
and we organized annual rain and tree-planting projects
in our neighborhood and others.
And in our neighborhood alone, since 1996,
we have planted over 1,400 food bearing trees.
(Applause)
We harvest over a million gallons of rain each year
that previously run out of the neighborhood.
But this is just the start!
I mean, we can and need to harvest tens of millions of gallons more
just in that neighborhood,
and billions of gallons more throughout the community.
So, you don't have to be a home owner to do this, or even have a yard.
Because most of the planting we do is in the public arena,
along the street or in the street, the commons,
such as here with the water harvesting traffic calming roundabout,
or here, a water harvesting traffic calming chicane.
You can do it on school grounds, church grounds,
you can even do it in parking lots and parks.
And you can do in all climates, wet and dry, as it mitigates extremes.
It reduces flooding in wet times, it reduces drought in dry times.
The only thing that changes as you shift work
from one climate to the other is the plants that you use.
And you can do it on all scales.
When you start to harvest rainwater and experience that in your landscape
that leads to harvesting rainwater for washing, for cooking, for drinking.
Sponge neighborhoods lead to sponge cities.
Revived creeks lead to revived rivers.
So, what drains do you have in your life that you could turn into sponges?
The work is easy.
What's difficult is the shift in thinking.
Because planting the rain is a 180-degree shift
from how we typically do things today.
It's about shifting from a scarcity mindset to abundance.
It's about
using what you already have not what you buy or import.
It's about partnering with natural systems not fighting them.
It's about growing more life and potential not paving over it.
And as soon as you do this, as soon as you experience it in the rain,
you immediately see how it all works,
it all makes sense.
You see how you are a key part of a solution and not a problem.
But this comes with a serious risk
because, even if it's three a.m., and it starts to rain,
you are likely to run outside in your underwear
just to see your basins and tanks fill up with water,
and when you see all that accumulating abundance,
you're going to take these here buns
and do a little bun dance on the path to a-bun-dance!
When you see it all happen you're going to shout,
"I don't need no stinking hose.
I've got the rain!
The harvest is on!"
(Applause)
Thank you.
In memory of and gratitude
for Mr. Zephaniah Phiri Maseko 1927 - Sept 1, 2015
(Cheers)
(Applause)