Water

ORANGE COUNTY, Aug 24th – Mike Milligan trudges up the canyon, gesturing at bone-dry trees, streams that have turned to trickles and thick carpets of tinder- ready, dead leaves. A cigarette dangles from his lips, slowly becoming ash.
Milligan, the volunteer fire chief for Holy Jim Canyon and longtime cabin owner in the area, frets about fire. His firsthand experience tells him that the driest year on record – 2013 – has only grown worse. The first seven months of 2014 were the hottest ever in Orange County.
“I’ve been coming up here 50-plus years, and I’ve never seen it this bad,” Milligan said.
One problem? The canyon’s alder trees are dying. In healthy times, the alders shade fishing holes. During this drought, the tall, dead alders serve as potential torches. The desiccated trees also shed duff – dead branches and leaves – that in some spots is a foot deep.
The last time the entire forest burned was in 1908, though the smaller Indian Fire took out great patches of forest in 1980.…

The Canal & River Trust (formerly British Waterways) is publishing details of 100 readymade waterway days out (canalrivertrust.org.uk/places-to-visit) to give individuals, couples and families a simple and affordable chance to spend quality time.

Half the UK population lives within five miles of one of the Canal & River Trust’s waterways and canals. And there are now 34,000 licensed boats and thousands more unlicensed ones where off-gridders can leave cheap or free lives.

British Waterways were unable to say how fast the numbers are growing, but they do say there are now more boats on the waterways “than at the height of the Industrial Revolution” in the C19th.…

You can drink the rainwater in Atlanta, Georgia, but that is one of the few places in the US that provides for the use of rainwater as a source of drinking water. A handful of states – including Arizona, Texas, and Virginia – have created tax credits to reduce rainwater harvesting system costs.

Meanwhile water rates are rising at an average of 8% a year, and corporations are freely using “our” rainwater to increase their profits.…

A new architectural movement is leading to fresh opportunities for off-grid living – close to the rivers and seas that carry so much of our food. We will be following it closely on this web site.

Instead of bringing the water to our homes, why not bring our homes to the water? Especially at a time when rising sea levels threaten the flooding of some of the world’s greatest cities?

Aquatecture is a fundamentally new reappraisal of how we co-exist with the sea and rivers. Leading exponents include Baca Architects, London. Their first domestic project went on site last month.

The Netherlands, which The Washington Post sees as “the world’s premier lab for how to tame rivers and seas,” is also at the forefront of building “amphibious houses,” which are designed to adapt and respond to rising sea levels.…

Many cities and states encourage rainwater harvesting, yet few homes and commercial buildings have implemented it.

Excuses range from the cost of construction to lack of knowledge. Yet individuals who have incorporated such systems say that integrating water harvesting reduces costs over the long run.

“I have not used Utility water since 1994 in my home.” said A R Shivakumar. “With planning, rain water harvesting does not have to be expensive and space consuming.” Here are his tips:

TANK IT UP

Multiple rainwater tanks can be built depending on the flow of water. For instance, at Shivakumar’s home there is a 4500-litre rooftop tank. The excess water from this tank is allowed to run down rainwater pipes to a 25,000 litre sump built under the portico. If these two tanks fill up, then the extra water is allowed to seep into the ground.…

TUCSON AZ – New techniques and revival of old skills can make a little water go a long way, even here in the Catalina foothills.

1. The secret to urban water harvesting is using the many impermeable surfaces that surround us: roofs, streets, sidewalks and driveways. The runoff from those surfaces amounts to a huge amount, if properly collected and used for irrigation. In rural situations, create as many hard surfaces as you can.
2. Good collection techniques can triple the amount of water that falls, so for example, the patch of garden that now needs irrigation would get about 12 inches a year. That’s still pretty dry, but it does just lift that patch out of a “desert” definition. Diverting rainfall from your rooftop and driveways can provide quite a bit of water for irrigation.…