2014 Park Pride Parks and Greenspace Conference Presenters is Brad Lancaster

1. Regenerative Parks and Parkways:
Local Harvests and Enhancements
in Our Community Commons
by Brad Lancaster
www.HarvestingRainwater.com
www.DesertHarvesters.org

2. What is the story of your place?
What is your role in that story?
What is the role of your public land
(parks, parkways, rights-of-way)
in that story? 2

3. Sponge Drain
1904
Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A
and the Santa Cruz river
2007

4. Floods that occurred every 100 years
begin to occur every 10 years -
after development paves the watershed and increases the rate
and volume of stormwater running off site

5. Distance is energy
We ignore, deplete, or pollute our
local waters
— then import ever more distant
water
The largest consumer of electricity
(and single source producer of carbon)
in Arizona is the pumping of water

6. The average annual rainfall in Tucson is (280 mm) 11 inches
Yet more rain falls on the surface area of Tucson
in a year of average rainfall,
than the annual consumption of Tucson’s water-utility water
Said another way, in you were to divide the average annual precipitation falling
on Tucson by its population,
then divide again by 365 days a year, and you get:

7. Harvest and utilize on-site water
(rainwater, stormwater, greywater, c
ondensate, etc)
as close as possible to where it falls
within the oasis zone
- within 30’ (9 m) of catchment
surface

8. Path to Scarcity Path to Abundance
• Turns resources into wastes
• Relies on the costly and imported
• Consumes more than it produces
• Disintegrated Drains
• Turns ―wastes‖ into resources
• Relies on the free and local
• Produces more than it consumes
• Integrated Harvests

10. Cutting street curb

11. In Tucson, AZ (receiving 11 inches [280 mm] of annual rainfall)
One mile of an average residential street drains over
ONE MILLION GALLONS of rainfall per year.
That’s enough water to sustainably irrigate 400 native food trees per mile,
or one tree every 25 feet on both sides of the street - irrigated by the street.

12. ^ 1994
2006
>

13. 1
3

14. Curb cuts legalized in 2007
$45 permit

15. Curb core hole
4-inch (100-mm) diameter

16. Prunings from tree used as
mulch to fertilize tree and
increase soil moisture
12 to 14% of the city’s solid
―waste‖ stream is yard trimmings
Brush and Bulky transformed
into Chipped and Mulchy

17. Chipped and Mulchy

18. Mitchell Pavao-Zuckerman, PhD
Biosphere 2 & School of Natural Resources and
Environment
University of Arizona mzuckerman@arizona.edu
• Trees associated with mulched
water-harvesting earthworks are
able to grow 33% larger than those
without.
This more than doubles the trees’
potential sequestration of
atmospheric carbon, passive
cooling, and food production
• The presence of more organic
matter in the soil enables the soil
itself to sequester additional carbon
• The natural pollutant-
filtering/bioremediation ability of the
soil mulched with organic material
was ten times greater than that of
rock- or gravel-mulched soil

19. 19

20. DesertHarvesters.org

21. Dunbar/Spring neighborhood intersection repair, 2006
inspired by CityRepair.org

23. The neighborhood now annually harvests over
660,000 gallons (2 acre feet) of stormwater
in the public right-of-way within 10 water-harvesting
traffic circles, 33 chicanes, and 85 street-side
basins fed by 50 curb cuts and 35 cores
But we could, and need to, increase that harvest
by at least 30 times
Before chicane ^
After chicane >

24. Gila Monster bench by Hiro Tashima
next to neighborhood book nook

25. Lost Sonoran Sucker fish and
water-harvesting Horned Lizard
sculpture by Joseph Lupiani
in a water-harvesting
traffic-calming chicane

26. Scarcity – heat island Abundance – cool island
5.5 ˚C (10˚F) increase of summer temperatures 5.5 ˚C (10˚F) decrease of summer temperatures

27. Scarcity – heat island Abundance – cool island
5.5 ˚C (10˚F) increase of summer temperatures 5.5 ˚C (10˚F) decrease of summer temperatures

28. Green Streets Policy in Tucson, AZ
Minimum ½ -inch rainfall to be harvested in roadway or adjoining right-of-way
http://www.mayorrothschild.com/2013/05/29/tucson-to-capture-stormwater-for-irrigation-of-roadway-vegetation/
www.Watershedmg.org

29. Public right-of-ways
must not be limited to
private utility
rights-of-ways

30. Green Streets
Portland, Oregon

31. City of Portland, Oregon Sustainable Stormwater Overlays
courtesy of Dave Elkin
City is divided up into subwatersheds, and those of highest need are identified.
Combined Sewer Overflowsand flooding are the typical problem

32. Conventional drainage design cost $144 million

33. Plan with sustainable stormwater strategies cost $86 million.
$58 million savings due to the reduction of needed pipe replacement

34. Neighborhood Greenways /
Bicycle Boulevards
http://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/348902
3
4

36. U of A College of Architecture
and Landscape Architecture
(CALA) Building, Tucson, AZ
www.cala.arizona.edu
11 inches (282 mm) annual rainfall

38. Dead drainageway to living infiltrationway
U of A Architecture and Landscape Architecture Building, Tucson, AZ
CALA landscape tour www.cala.arizona.edu

40. Death
According to Grave Matters, today the
U.S. funeral industry buries over 3
pounds of the formaldehyde-based
―formalin‖ with every embalmed body
(totaling 800,000 gallons [3,028,000
liters] of formaldehyde a year)
Over time the typical ten-acre [4 ha]
swath of cemetery ground contains
enough coffin wood to construct more
than forty houses, nine hundred-plus tons
[816,000 kg] of casket steel, and another
twenty thousand tons [18,143,000 kg] of
vault concrete

41. To Life
A green burial does
not allow toxic
embalming, concre
te vaults, or
elaborate
caskets, which can
reduce the cost of
a burial by $8,000
to $12,000

42. Honey Creek
Woodlands
Georgia’s First
Conservation Burial Ground
It is part of an 8,000-acre
conservation effort known
as the Arabia Mountain
Heritage Area along the
South River
www.GreenBurials.org

43. What could be the story of your place?
What will be your role in that story?
What will be the role of your public land
(parks and parkways) in that story?

44. www.HarvestingRainwater.com