Environmental Education 501(c) 3
La Cienega Valley Citizens for Environmental Safeguards
Water.
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WATER RESOURCES PROGRAMBernalillo County Rain Barrel ProgramProperty owners in the unincorporated area who are NOT water customers of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA) can qualify to receive one rain barrel per occupied address. To participate and qualify for the Rain Barrel Program, just sign up for a Home Water Conservation Survey. We will verify that there is a way for the rain barrel to be utilized on the site and you will pay only $40 for a 100 gallon rain barrel. We will also provide water saving tips for the outdoors and can provide low-flow aerators and shower heads for inside your home. To sign up, just complete an application or call 848-1500. RAIN GARDENSFact Sheet: A 'Rain Garden'John builds a rain garden Prolonged droughts in southern Australia has meant there is less water available for home gardeners, both in terms of natural rainfall and because of water restrictions. Gardeners are looking at different ways to overcome this dire situation and to prevent their gardens from becoming a wasteland. One method is to build a rain garden. A rain garden is a system that collects water from paving, hard surfaces, roofs, and puts it through a filtering mechanism that removes nutrients and pollutants. The water can then be used to irrigate the garden or, can pass through the filtering system and be released into the drainage system. Our rain garden: • The rain garden we are building will collect rain from the roof and direct it into a planter box through a pipe system. • The planter box will contain a layer of sand, and the water will run into that sand and some of it will be held, but excess will run through. • Plants will use much of the water. But excess water runs into the sand, and into a layer of gravel at the bottom. • Use a PVC pipe, with slots, or aggie pipe in the gravel layer at the bottom. This will help drain excess water into the drainage system, leaving the plants at the top to thrive and give you a wonderful green garden. • But remember, any work done on the stormwater system, must be performed by a licensed plumber. To make a rain garden: • A timber container, or planter box, is lined with a sheet of plastic - to prevent water spreading laterally through the joints in the timber. • At the bottom we have laid 20mm of gravel (we used 10 to 14 mm gravel) below the pipe but it will eventually be filled up above the pipe. • The pipe should be laid so that it flows, down to the lowest point in the container. • Then place gravel around the pipe to prevent sand entering it. • The next layer is sand. Fill the planter box up – it should be about 100mm from the top, but leave enough room for a good layer of large pebbles as mulch. • An extra overflow pipe means that in a really heavy downpour, the excess water will go down into the garden and won’t flood the whole garden. • When choosing plants for the rain garden, select those that will tolerate occasional water logging when it floods, but extended periods of dryness when there’s no rainfall. • Remove as much soil as possible from the roots before planting because the potting mix will reduce the porosity of the sandy soil. • Choose fibrous rooted plants which make use of the sandy medium they’re growing in, but allow water to percolate through. There are many native and indigenous plants that fit that bill. • We planted Lomandra along the back. In the foreground we planted Carex testacea; in the centre we planted a green form of kangaroo paw – known to love sandy, open soils and full sun so it should do well in the centre; and on each side a variegated Dianella. • Once the garden is planted just top it off with about 50mm of pebbles. • The stones act as good mulch and they’re heavy enough not to float away if they get flooded. The air gaps between them allow ponding so only in a really big downpour will the overflow be needed. • Once the plants are in and the mulch is on, just water the plants in. Now the great thing about a rain garden is that it maximises the amount of water that would otherwise just run off. It removes nutrients and pollutants so it makes our streams and creeks much cleaner, ancleaner, and what’s more, it brings a wonderful splash of colour to an area of the garden that was otherwise really pretty dull.
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Senate Bill 787 Clean Water Restoration Act ALL ACTIONS:
Rain barrels In the Albuquerque program
Rain gardens
Our land of little rainAs the Earth becomes more inhospitable and difficult to survive in, perhaps we may find oursselves on a path to sweet water then again, might not. This is a place where marginalized Indians, Mexicans, and women struggle to speak their voices, yet only the howls of coyotes can be heard. Cackling and vying for alpha positions. It is there where the voices that held knowledge spoke and it is where grandmothers lived. It is a land where water flows in a ditch or it doesn Where the water is in the plants, trees and the rocks, and it is brokered, brokered like our relationship to Earth and Sky so familiar in the West. ;Our land of little rain where clouds fly by yet keeps their gifts for others. It rains so hard with never touching the ground or pours so violent it drowns with the deluge of mud, turbid and rank. Taste the salty sweat bead as it passes over lips all the while longing for sweet water. It carries with it the snow, the ice or the fire and heat it is that which flows, blood, water and life. Our land of little rain. Must we move or stay, without rain, there is no life.-Elaine Cimino
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