Unfortunately, rainwater harvesting has received some bad press lately convincing a significant amount of Americans that rainwater harvesting is illegal and the government will come after you for engaging in this practice. THIS IS NOT TRUE! Lets take a look at the actual laws.  

First off, the unfortunate story that received national attention and created this problem was about a man in Oregon who built dams on his property, creating three artificial lakes, complete with boat docks and fish. His case was described as one that was far in excess of an individual’s simple collection of rainwater. However, the article titles made it sound like the average person could go to jail for catching a little rainwater. This man never went to jail but repeatedly did not follow orders to drain his lakes.

Rainwater harvesting is legal is every state.

Some states significantly limit the amount of rainwater you can collect. All states have laws to regulate the building of lakes. But every single state lets you collect rainwater from your own roof. Here in San Diego County you don't need a permit for rainwater harvesting tanks - even pretty big ones - as long as you follow some commonsense regulations in how you hook the tank up. The County even has multiple rebates for people who install tanks, up to $450!

David Tarsi's blog documents the rainwater harvesting regulations of every state. His research has found there is currently no state government law in the U.S. that considers rainwater harvesting by individuals (home owners) in a direct manor and bluntly, “against the law” for anyone and everyone.

Please don't let deceptive articles sway you from rainwater harvesting - it's not only legal, but it's easy, can save you money on your water bill and help build a regenerative future!

In part of India the drought is so bad that they actually fine people if they DON'T have rainwater harvesting systems!

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How much does it rain where you live? Do you know? Does it matter?

It is easy to guess how much it rains, maybe you look at a bucket or puddle but to really know you must use some kind of proper gauge, like the one above.

It is important to measure rainfall to calculate your supply when trying grow plants, manage stormwater or prepare for years of flood or drought. After all, if you don't know how much you're getting, how can you prepare for the future?

The easiest way is to buy a gauge. The AcuRite 00850A2 5-Inch Capacity Easy-Read Magnifying Rain Gauge is less than $4 on Amazon (click item for link). Then, take the gauge and place it (often mounted to a wooden post) at a level that is easy to read. Be sure the gauge is not near any buildings or trees because wind can push the rain to fall at an angle and be blocked by an object which might give you a bad reading on your new gauge. I like to put out two gauges in different places and compare them - but I realize that is pretty nerdy!

Once you get some rain and check the gauge it is best to write it down so you don't forget! Then, you can use the data to figure out your annual rainfall. Just add up all the numbers. But wait - what month do you start and end with to find out how much you got for the year???

Professionals that measure rainfall sometimes argue about this. Two years ago, after using the so-called rain year - July to June - for more than 130 years to measure precipitation totals, National Weather Service stations in Southern California started using the "hydrological year" - October to September. Why does it matter?

In order calculate an accurate and comparable average, the beginning and end of the "year" that is used should be outside of the rainy season or after a normal break in a rain season. For example, the calendar year begins and ends right in winter, when a lot of places get a significant portion of their precipitation - this makes it often a bad time to start record keeping.

It can be tough because different places in the country have breaks in the rain at different times so it's hard to have just one type of "rain" year to easily be comparable. Luckily this problem is pretty easy to fix - every weather service station nationwide produces two rainfall totals: one based on the calendar year and a second based on local preferences. The big question is when should your local area make it's rain "year"?

Looking at the above graph in Ramona, CA (eastern San Diego County) where we have our permaculture education and demonstration site, you can see the rainy season comes to an end in June. That means either the rain year - July to June or the "hydrological" year - September to October - would be appropriate to use, the former being the most accurate.

So far, this "year" in Ramona we have received higher than average rainfall, like much of California has. A nice change from some recent lower than average years. As we go from extreme years of drought to extreme years in flooding, knowing how much rain we get allows us to properly prepare our rainwater harvesting systems, whether they be active or passive systems, for the future. This reduces the chance of problems or system failures allowing maintenance to be minimal and us to sit back and relax whether the weather is bone dry or soaking wet. Remember to design with the future in mind!

Resources:
U.S. Climate Data - http://www.usclimatedata.com/ - rainfall totals and graphs by city.

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Here in a dryland environment (San Diego County), rainwater harvesting is critical in weaning ourselves off of foreign water and creating a sustainable and local water supply. What a lot of people don't realize is even in a place that doesn't get a lot of rain, like coastal San Diego County - approximate average of 10 inches of rain per year - you can still catch a HUGE amount of water! For example, the average home in San Diego County has a 2000 square foot roof. With JUST one inch of rain this size roof would catch 1200 gallons of water - this is active rainwater harvesting. This pales in comparison to the amount of rainwater that can be caught in healthy soil - passive rainwater harvesting. Lets explore these two types of systems, active and passive.

Passive rainwater harvesting freely works without the need of a person, switch or valve. The more passive a system, the less energy it needs.  Earthworks, simple structures and strategies that change the topography and surface of the soil, are a great example of this system. They can speed the infiltration of water, augment soil moisture and nutrient availability and provide large quantities of high quality rainwater to gardens and landscapes. Water can be collected in huge amounts from roofs, streets, vegetation, bare dirt or greywater drains. This water is only available for limited periods after rainfall depending on soil type, mulch, climate and plant uptake but it can recharge groundwater.

Something as simple as applying a layer of mulch around your plants can reduce water usage by 25%, creating a passive system.

Active rainwater harvesting requires a person, switch or valve to actively turn it on/open or off/closed. The more active a system, the more energy it requires. The best example of this are storage tanks or cisterns that collect rainwater from roofs. This allows you to store the water for when you need it, like summer, to be used to water plants or anything else. The downside is these systems tend to cost more than earthworks and limit your storage capacity to the size of the tank.

So which is better? Lets look to nature for the answer since natural systems are the most efficient as they don't need external inputs. For this reason passive rainwater harvesting systems are the best! You only need to build them once, and if done properly, you will never need to maintain them or add anything to them - like healthy soil in your yard. However, active rainwater harvesting systems are still a critical tool for creating water independence. For example, here is San Diego County we can use rainwater harvesting tanks, an active system, to significantly reduce our need to import water from distant places (Click for our past blog on where San Diego's water comes from).

The best is to use both active and passive systems. What's important is to build and install them properly to ensure they work efficiently, creating a sustainable and even regenerative future for us all!

Resources
Brad Lancaster's rainwater harvesting website - full of useful information. His books on rainwater harvesting are the best out there!
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

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Here in San Diego County, we have a highly diverse range in climates, in fact, we are the most biologically diverse county in the country. From the oceanic coast, to the rolling foothills, to the tall mountains, to the expansive desert - the one thing the whole County has in common is we import the VAST majority of our water.

When trying to calculate our water supply, we should first start with what we have locally. Above we see the general range in rainfall amounts across the county. If we look below, we see that 16% of our water is from local supply. This includes surface water, groundwater, recycled water and conservation. This amount could jump up significantly if we embraced rainwater harvesting on a large-scale. Learn more how much we could be catching on our Catching Rainwater page. Additionally, water recycling and greywater systems both have HUGE potential for using water MUCH more efficiently, we will discuss these in future blogs.

Next we see that about 20% of our water is imported from northern California. This source relies on the Sierra snow pack, something that has been shrinking over recent years, see the report for details. The snow pack is important because it is like a bank account of water that can be relied upon into summer as it melts and flows down to the delta where the water is collected and exported to us. Unfortunately, even in non-drought years when the Sierras get a healthy snow pack, rising temperatures are melting the snow much faster than previous years causing us and many others to loose that critical time-released water. 

By far, the largest portion of our water comes from the Colorado River, about 64%. This water is obtained by the San Diego County Water Authority through a long-term water conservation and transfer agreement with the Imperial Irrigation District and two canal-lining agreements that transfer conserved water to San Diego County. Moving water over these long distances has significant costs and liabilities. 

For one, 20% of out entries state's electricity is used to move water, that is a lot of money and energy each year! Secondly, having most of our water come from one source a long way away means that our supply is quite fragile. An earthquake or other disaster could quickly cut off this supply. Third, so many places draw water from the Colorado River, complicated and outdated water laws are creating tension between regions.  Lastly,  taking away such a significant amount of water from the river means that animals, plants and people down the river don't get any water. Other than a few wet years, according to University of Arizona,the Colorado River has not flowed to the Gulf of California since 1960.

20% of our ENTIRE state's energy is used to move water!

It is clear that relying on such a high percentage of foreign water is not sustainable in the long run. Through water conservation, water recycling and rainwater harvesting, both active and passive (described in upcoming blog), we can become FAR more self sufficient as a county.

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For years I have occasionally drove past an area in Poway, CA on Ted Williams Parkway and noticed an orchard-like planting of about 100 citrus trees that sits within the road's right-of-way. I often think about how our local government could be planting drought-tolerant fruit bearing trees instead of the non-fruit-bearing trees they almost always plant. We could be getting food for free!

Seeing this public orchard makes me very excited every time I go by, but it's placed in a location where there is nowhere to pull over - how are you supposed to get to the fruit? Finally this past month I visited the site by parking in a nearby street and walking over.

As I neared the trees I noticed the first fruits were grapefruit - a fruit I tend to avoid. I walked further to find other varieties but to my surprise I found that every single tree was a grapefruit! They only planted one kind of citrus - and the worst kind in my opinion!

Not only that but the hill was so steep we could barely walk on it. How were they expecting people to harvest this fruit?

Many of the trees were dying, especially the ones on the south facing hill and trees that were high on the slope were there is less plant-available soil moisture (all the water moves down the hill). You can see in the above picture that they installed culverts to specifically move water away from the orchard area!

In San Diego County's Mediterranean climate these water intensive plants need supplemental irrigation. Building healthy soil and harvesting rainwater in the soil reduces the amount of supplemental irrigation significantly, but citrus likes a lot of water.

Check out our blog about plants appropriate for Mediterranean climates which we planted at our permaculture education and demonstration site in Ramona, CA (San Diego County).

Next to the orchard we found a variety of edible and useful plants including:
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
CA Buckwheat (Eriogonum fasciculatum)
White Sage (Salvia apiana)
Artichoke (unknown spp.)
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)

Growing edible and useful plants in public spaces is a no-brainer! Why have plants that you can't use when you can have pants that you can??? What's important is to plant the right plants in the right places. Plants that use a lot of water should not be in places that don't have a lot of water. Plants that require harvesting should not be on extremely steep slopes, etc.

These simple design parameters found in permaculture and ecological design allow us to build regenerative systems that take care of themselves, saving you time and money while also getting yummy and healthy food AND creating healthy ecosystems for a healthy planet!

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An article on February 22nd by Emily Shapiro on ABC news goes briefly through the past, present and future of the "drought." Here is our article summary with additional information.

In January 2014 California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought state of emergency and allocated over $3 billion for drought relief and water management improvements. The official drought started in 2012, coupled with record heat year after year. Additional heat means additional evaporation which can add up to a lot! Take coastal San Diego for example, who gets about 10 inches of precipitation a year but has over 60 inches of pan evaporation! That means a lot more water evaporates than falls, making healthy soil, mulching and the planting of climate-appropriate trees critical.

California has been seeing record rains recently causing flooding around the state. From San Diego County to Yreka, California, to the far north, all of California has received historic rainfall levels, filling reservoirs fast, some too fast! Even with the large amounts of rain, things can dry out quickly if temperatures shoot up, something that is being observed more often.

The question seems to come up in every article about rain in California, "Is the drought over?" Our recent blog post, It's Raining Tanks and Cisterns (click for link), discusses why this is a dangerous question to ask. Of course, it should be discussed, but planning for, and educating people about the new normal of receiving less average rainfall is far more important than if people can legally go back to using grossly unnecessary amounts of water that became restricted under the "drought" "rules". As we've observed recently, things can dry out quickly if temperatures shoot up. 

With less rain, farmers have been pumping extra ground water. So much so, that the ground level has been dropping significantly in areas with heavy ground water draw. According to Park Williams, a climate scientist and an assistant professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, groundwater pumping is essentially taking away from future water reserves to survive this current drought.

"If we take groundwater out of the ground and we don't put water back in to replace it, then that is an unsustainable approach to the use of a very valuable resource," Williams said. "As we continue to reduce drought effects by pulling water out of the ground, we're stealing from the future. And so without prescribing any recommendation, I will say that the California government is beginning to try to regulate groundwater use ... The point of doing that is to try to find a more sustainable approach to using that valuable resource."

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, California's water comes from three main sources: aquifers, snowpack, and reservoirs. The drought tends to hit rural communities harder than the cities as they are better able to diversify their water supply. Most farmers rely on irrigation, which accounts for approximately 80 percent of California’s water use, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Jerry Brown has made a number of executive orders to help the state deal with the drought, the most recent mandating "continued, long-term water savings as drought persists."

David Feldman, a UC Irvine professor of planning, policy and design, says it's important to prepare for a drought before one is declared. He recommends that the U.S. follow Australia's example by harvesting rainwater and recycling wastewater. Our recent blog post, What Regions In Drought Can Learn From Australia (click link), dives deeper into those proven strategies.

He also said it is critical to not take our water for granted. Every drop counts.

"Droughts are not just limited to California and the Southwest," Feldman said. "Other areas of the U.S. have been through periods of water stress and drought from time to time. We want to do everything we can ... to protect our water, to conserve it ... to recycle it if we can, just to treat it more wisely than we have in the past."

Rainwater harvesting systems save water from wetter times for the drier times - whether it be reservoir or a rainwater harvesting tank at your home. Our recent blog post talks about the advantages of smaller rainwater harvesting systems so we don't encounter dangerous problems like we have been experiencing at Oroville Dam (click for link - How You Can Save Oroville Dam - Harvest Rainwater).

Link to original article: http://abcnews.go.com/US/californias-wet-weather-believing-drought/story?id=45628808

The Oroville dam has recently garnered a lot of attention, and for a very good reason, thousands of people's lives were put at risk. The stories have focused one what went wrong, how to fix it, who's to blame, etc. - all important! But if we look deeper into the problem in area's like San Diego County where we import the majority of our water and rely on MASSIVE infrastructure projects, similar to the Oroville Dam, we can realize that using rainwater harvesting tools can significantly reduce our dependence on these huge, dangerous, energy consuming systems.

Did you know that approximately 20% of ALL electricity in California is used to move water around the state?

Why do we have these reservoirs? They serve to store water, much of them rainwater, for times when we need the water. They fill during rain and are used to supply water to people when we need the water, often during dryer times of the year or in times of drought.

Why do we use rainwater storage tanks at our homes? Same as the reservoirs, just a much smaller scale, to store rainwater for when we need it. BUT, if millions of people had properly sized  rainwater storage tanks at their homes (California has a population of about 40 million), we could reduce our need to use or even have such large reservoirs.

Nobody wants to put lives at risk, so lets all do our part and get a rainwater harvesting tank. Lets make them the new normal like they have done in Australia during their Mega Drought (click to check out our blog post on that). Not only can we decrease risk to people, we can use local water, decrease flooding and demand of flood control systems AND you don't have to pay for the water, it's free!

Don't forget, even in places that don't get a lot of rain, you can catch an amazing amount of water to meet your needs (click to see our blog post on that).

We can store even more rainwater in healthy soil, something we will discuss in a future blog!

Have you ever tasted rainwater? Maybe stuck your tongue out trying to catch some drops, but probably not a whole glass?

Drinking rainwater is not only safe, but actually safer than the water you get out of your tap. Tap water normally contains chlorine or other chemicals while rainwater is clean (assuming you don't have air quality problems) and even can have a little bit of good minerals in it.

Collecting rainwater for drinking is still illegal in California as it is in many states. However, in Texas it is legal to bring rainwater into your home for potable use.

Rainwater normally has a relatively low Ph, around 5.6, so slightly acidic, but totally safe. Amazingly, storing rainwater in a cement cistern or tank, like ours, brings the Ph up a little bit, to about 7-9, creating the ideal Ph for drinking water!

The most common limiting factor when considering drinking rainwater is the type of roof you have. Asphalt shingle roofs are the most popular type of roof and are the least safe, requiring a significant amount of filtering. Metal, cement and tile roofs are the most safe types and require minimal filtering before drinking. We will talk more about filtering in a future blog post.

Quick slideshow of installing a ferrocement rainwater harvesting tank in Poway, CA (San Diego County). We make these tanks in pre-cast, modular sections. This means we can easily roll the sections into your yard for installation and don't need to do any messy concrete work on-site. This tank is 300 gallons.

Link to more information about our tanks:
Water Tanks

We know the popular idiom "it's raining cats and dogs," but here at Permasystems we like to say it's raining tanks and cisterns! In San Diego County we have been enjoying a wet winter, a nice change from the past few dry years.

Although we have already hit the average total amount of rainfall for the year we are only about half-way through our wet season of December to March! At our ecological design education and demonstration site in Ramona, CA (San Diego County) we have received about 16 inches so far this year. Our average is about 16 inches a year so we are looking great! Northern California has especially received a lot of rain and snow, snow being the most important for us here in Southern California as we receive about 20% of our water from that.

There are currently a plethora of articles in the media talking about if the drought is over. People want to know if water restrictions going to be lifted? Is the drought over? Drought this, drought that.

Here at Permasystems, we don't think the question of whether we are in a drought or not should be the central issue or talking point. The point is the AVERAGE rainfall we are seeing is going down and the AVERAGE temperatures are going up. We certainly need to plan for "drought" years but we absolutely cannot go back to the amount of water we were using pre-drought, (most recent) once the "drought" is over. We NEED to plan for the new normal.

There are many things we can do to adapt to these new conditions. For one, we need to ramp up rainwater harvesting on a massive scale for homes, business, schools, government builds, streets, parks, etc. Not only are we seeing less rain but more intense rain events in short periods of time that cause serious flooding.

Properly planning for rainwater harvesting not only stores water for us to use later, like in tanks, but, for example, by creating what are called infiltration basins (see photo below) we allow water to slow down and sink into the landscape. This reduces the amount of flooding while also getting more water to plants.

Secondly, we need to use water efficient devices. Toilets, shower heads, dishwashers, clothes washers, etc., all can add up to saving a lot of water with the right products. An often-cited 2011 study of California single-family water consumption estimated that the average California household indoor use accounted for more than 170 gallons per household per day. Not surprisingly, the most in-home water consumption was in toilet flushes. A more shocking finding, however, was the whopping 18 percent lost to leaks inside homes, the study found.

Third, we need to embrace greywater. Greywater is the reuse of water from showers, washing machines, etc. This gently used water would have just gone into the drain, but with greywater you can get another entire use out of the water, like giving it food bearing plants. This system allows you to double the use of the water!

Fourth, utilize plants that are adapted to the environment they are growing in. Slowly San Diego County is learning that a climate-adapted plants (something that is drought-tolerant) can save a significant amount of water. Water thirsty plants and trees are becoming too expensive to care for and due to decreased rainfall can begin to die or increase the plants' susceptibility to disease. When this happens, crews need to come into remove the trees before they become a hazard - all of which could have been avoided if a drought-tolerant plant had been chosen.

Fifth and last, use less. Once we get used to using less water, it's easy. Shorter showers, less toilet flushing, less car washing, no lawns, fixing leaks, etc. - all adds up to a lot!