• Technical Round Table Mon February 8, 2016: Storm water capture. Making use of the run on bonanza

    Are you a landscape professional working in or near Santa Barbara? Worried about drought or deluge? Come to Sweetwater Collaborative's Technical Round table for Landscape Professionals on Monday, February 8, 2016, from 7:00-8:30 PM. at the Watershed Resource Center at Hendry's Beach. The topic is Storm water capture   Making use of the run on bonanza.

    Get ready for ongoing El Nino storms by setting up your clients' landscapes to 1) absorb all the water that lands on them from the sky, and 2) all the water they can handle that runs on or by the property from adjoining watersheds.

     Special guest facilitator Art Ludwig, ecological systems designer, and Fred Hunter, Permaculture designer and licensed landscape contractor, will lead the discussion.

    Yup, there's a couple inches of wet on the surface from recent rains, but the drought continues unabated from there to the center of the earth.  Yet...
     
     
    ..In a 1" rain, a 10 ft wide paved street will drain 27,800 gal of rainfall per mile 
    Reproduced with permission from "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond" by Brad Lancaster, www.HarvestingRainwater.com. 
     
    The average Santa Barbara lot gets as much water from the sky as through the meter! Yet…so much of this runs off that it does no where near as much good as it could. 
     
    ….in the recent three inch rainfall, the the surrounding soil was wet just one to six inches down. Meanwhile, on a property where where the stormwater run on was infiltrated four feet down. Needless to say, this helps trees and groundwater recharge far more.
     
    Join us on Monday, February 8 from 7:00-8:30 PM at the Watershed Resource Center, 2981 Cliff Dr, at Hendry's Beach, in Santa Barbara.
     
    Suggested donation: $10 at the door, payable in cash or check. Please share this opportunity with other landscape professionals.