[Scpg] Gardening; IN THE GARDEN; TreePeople's L.A. Pilot Project Is Testing the Waters( WAter catchment for the Home)

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson]

Gardening; IN THE GARDEN; TreePeople's L.A. Pilot Project Is Testing the
Waters
The Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif.; Aug 16, 1998; ROBERT SMAUS;

Abstract:
Think of how happy the plants would be to get fresh, pure rainwater instead 
of municipal
water, which often comes from sources high in mineral salts (such as the 
Colorado River).

If we had our own backyard supplies, water companies would be happy because 
they'd have
to find and store less water. Even flood control agencies would be tickled 
because any
water saved on your property would not be surging down their over-taxed 
storm drains.
Think of how much water simply rushes to the sea each winter.

Some of the water coming off the roof is stored on the property in huge 
cisterns, and some
of the water is contained by berms or captured in dry wells, where it can 
slowly soak into
the ground. In combination, these systems let very little rainfall leave 
the property.

Full Text:
(Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 1998 all Rights 
reserved)


Wouldn't it have been great if we could have saved some of the rain that 
fell last winter to use in our
gardens right now, when things are beginning to look a little parched?

Think of how happy the plants would be to get fresh, pure rainwater instead 
of municipal water, which
often comes from sources high in mineral salts (such as the Colorado River).

Those salts cause the edges of the leaves on some plants to turn brown at 
this time of year, and they
affect the health of plants in other ways too.

If we had our own backyard supplies, water companies would be happy because 
they'd have to find
and store less water. Even flood control agencies would be tickled because 
any water saved on your
property would not be surging down their over-taxed storm drains. Think of 
how much water simply
rushes to the sea each winter.

That's some of the thinking behind the TreePeople's latest project garden 
on a typical urban lot in
South-Central Los Angeles.

TreePeople has designed and built a landscape that captures and saves 
rainwater.

A panel of experts came up with the goals and ideas, engineers did the 
planning and design and two
designer-contractors--Karen Bragg and Bob Cornell--made it all work.

Some of the water coming off the roof is stored on the property in huge 
cisterns, and some of the water
is contained by berms or captured in dry wells, where it can slowly soak 
into the ground. In
combination, these systems let very little rainfall leave the property.

In a city where so much of the land is paved or roofed over and where 
gutters run freely, TreePeople's
ideas make good sense.

A number of interested agencies and foundations sponsored the project, 
including the city of Los
Angeles, the Department of Water and Power, the U.S. Forest Service, the 
Environmental Protection
Agency, the Metropolitan Water Department and the L.A. County Department of 
Public Works.

TreePeople estimate that retrofitting a typical Los Angeles garden to save 
and store water would cost in
the neighborhood of $7,500 to $15,000.

*

Andy Lipkis of TreePeople thinks that much of this cost might be born by 
such public agencies as water
departments and flood control districts.

Lipkis believes that retrofitting gardens might be cheaper than building 
new drainage systems, dams and
aqueducts.

In Australia and in several island countries, individuals routinely capture 
and save rainwater, so it is not a
new idea, though the flood control aspects of this project are a new twist, 
and this is the first system I've
seen that saves rainwater exclusively for the garden.

The heart of the water-storing system is two cisterns that collect water 
from the roof like giant rain
barrels. Together they hold about 3,200 gallons.

The cisterns take up very little room in the garden because most of their 
bulk is underground. Above
ground, each is 2 feet wide, 5 feet tall and 10 feet long. This 
above-ground portion could do
double-duty as a garden wall. The project's designers figure that they 
could line up along one property
line to store about 20,000 gallons.

That's far short of the 60,000 to 70,000 gallons a year used to water the 
typical garden in city of Los
Angeles, but it would make a nice dent.

Below ground, the cisterns are 10 feet long, but each becomes 4 feet wide 
and extends 6 feet below
ground.

The tanks are made of recycled polypropylene with a fiberglass coating. 
When I saw them, TreePeople
had not yet figured out how to put a finish coat on the fiberglass, so the 
containers looked a little raw.

Before the water gets to the cisterns, it runs though an elementary filter 
that takes out much of the
particulate matter that settles on roofs, from brake lining dust to pigeon 
droppings.

 From the interconnected tanks, the water is pumped directly into the 
automatic irrigation system.

The system was completed only in May but managed to "grab 300 gallons" from 
the last freak storm,
which dropped about two inches of rain on May 12 and 13, according to Lipkis.

For the pilot project, the two tanks drain only a quarter of the roof 
(about 250 square feet). The water
can also be pumped to the street if the cisterns are too full and a big 
storm is approaching.

In TreePeople's pilot project, the rest of the water from roof downspouts 
is directed down "swales,"
gentle 2% slopes that drain water away from the house but at such a slow 
rate that it has time to soak
into the soil.

Rainwater that soaks into the ground is almost as useful as water that is 
saved for summer. It thoroughly
waters trees and other deep-rooted plants and it eventually ends up as part 
of our ground-water supply.
Plenty of water running down through the soil also pushes out those harmful 
salts that tend to
accumulate from fertilizers and municipal irrigation water.

The swales are covered with either lawn grass or bark mulch, and they all 
slope toward the front lawn,
where the water is temporarily trapped behind low berms.

In the middle of one lawn in the pilot project there is a dry well, which 
is simply a big hole filled with
gravel where water can collect and soak into the soil. The dry well is 
hardly visible, only a small, round
drain hole shows.

*

The lawns would become like little lakes during a storm, holding water 
behind the low, mounded berms.
If the water got too deep, an overflow would let it run to the street.

Rain falling on the driveway is also sent to these lawn "lakes" and the dry 
well.

In nearly rainless years (which is what's being predicted for the coming 
winter), every drop that gets into
the ground counts.

Last winter and spring, it was quite clear in most gardens how helpful 
deep, soaking rains can be. Some
of the clever devices in this experimental garden make any rain a soaking 
rain, while the others stash
water away for those rainless days and months.

PHOTO: Landscape designer Robert Cornell, left, and TreePeople President 
Andy Lipkis examine the
rainwater storage system at demo house.; PHOTOGRAPHER: LAWRENCE K. HO / Los 
Angeles
Times; PHOTO: Rainwater is directed from the gutter into a filter and then 
into two 1,800-gallon
storage tanks.; PHOTOGRAPHER: LAWRENCE K. HO / Los Angeles Times

Credit: TIMES GARDEN EDITOR


Sub Title:
               [Home Edition]
Edition:
               Record edition
Start Page:
               8
ISSN:
               04583035
Subject Terms:
               Gardens & gardening
               Rain
               Water supply



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