Thursday, January 17, 2008, 8:30 am – 4:00 pm
Marriott Pyramid, Albuquerque, NM
Cost: $25.00/person.
Register on-line at www.quiviracoalition.org or call 505-820-2544 Ext. 5#.
Water resource specialists will share concepts and practices on how to turn water scarcity into water abundance.
Morning session:
“Turning Drains Into Sponges and Water Scarcity Into Water Abundance”
This inspiring presentation shares eight universal principles of water harvesting along with simple strategies that turn water scarcity into water abundance. They empower you to create integrated water-sustainable landscape plans at home and throughout your community. Rainwater harvesting is the process of capturing rain and making the most of it as close as possible to where it falls. You’ll see examples of enhancing local food security, passively cooling cities in summer, reducing costs of living and energy consumption, controlling erosion, averting flooding, reviving dead waterways, minimizing water pollution, building community, creating celebration and more.
Brad Lancaster is the author of the award-winning Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1: Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain Into Your Life and Landscape and Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2: Water-Harvesting Earthworks (www.HarvestingRainwater.com) Brad is a permaculture teacher, designer, consultant and co-founder of Desert Harvesters (www.DesertHarvesters.org) and has taught programs for the ECOSA Institute, Columbia University, University of Arizona, Prescott College, Audubon Expeditions, and many others. He has designed and implemented integrated water harvesting and permaculture systems for homeowners and gardeners, the Tucson Audubon Simpson Farm restoration site, and the Milagro and Stone Curves co-housing projects.
Afternoon session:
“Water Harvesting from Low-Standard Rural Roads”
Water can be a nuisance, but is also a valuable natural resource. As the West becomes more populated, as the demand for water escalates and the available supply shrinks, practical measures for harvesting or conserving water become increasingly useful. Instructors Bill Zeedyk, and Steve Carson, will introduce the concept of harvesting water from low-standard rural roads and address construction and maintenance issues including strategies, techniques and practices for harvesting road runoff to benefit the land and for dealing with frequently encountered problems.
Bill Zeedyk operates a small consulting business – Zeedyk Ecological Consulting, LLC., that specializes in the restoration of wetland and riparian habitats using low tech, hands-on methods and native materials.
Following his retirement from the US Forest Service in 1990, he developed a second career focusing on simple techniques for stabilizing and restoring incised stream channels, gullied wetlands, and degraded rural roads on public and private
lands in the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico. In support of the workshops, Bill has prepared several field manuals including Managing Roads for Wet Meadow Ecosystem Recovery, and his latest book on roads management and maintenance, A Good Road Lies Easy on the Land…Water Harvesting from Low-Standard Rural Roads, published in 2006.
Steve Carson, Rangeland Hands, Inc., is a licensed and insured watershed and roads restoration project design and implementation contractor, and has worked with Bill on many roads and riparian restoration projects around the Southwest.
” A road is not easy on the land if it collects, concentrates or accelerates surface or subsurface runoff; causes or contributes to soil erosion; impairs or reduces the pro-
ductivity of adjacent lands or waters; wastes water; unnecessarily intrudes upon key habitats, stream chan- nels, floodplains, wetlands, wet meadows or other sensitive soils; and is aesthetically offensive”.