[Pil-pc-oceania] Following APC 9

Tue Apr 15 20:14:38 EST 2008

Hi Russ, Janet, et al,

Bill and I have been working on the PPP manifesto, and here is the water section so far:

He is taking it over to Melbourne for something on water soon.

Suggestions welcomed.

Love,
T

Water

If we allow 100% for the water that fall on an area of land,
probably 80% of this precipitation is as a result of condensation of moist air
on leaves. Some countries measure both rainfall and condensation (South Africa and Tasmania).

If we allow 100% for precipitation, 88% of it runs off the
land and goes into the sea or to inland depressions or evaporates, leaving only
12% for all the duties of water. This is the major waste of water.

If you survey dead level lines across the landscape at
intervals not exceeding 100m and commencing at 2m below the top of the slope,
then all the water that runs across the surface of the land will pool in
channels dug along these lines, ranging from .5 to 3m width and .5 to 1.5 m
deep, called swales. The spoil from this channel is piled on the lower lip of
the swale.

If rain persists above 12mm in one hour, water flows across
the lands and pools in the swales. No water leaves the property. Usually within
3 hours, all this water soaks in and is immune from evaporation or run off
loss. That is the swale system affords a total water conservation of
precipitation. No other system does this.

What is the ultimate use of this water? Modern swales in California within the
settlement of Village Homes stored in their first year about 2m of saturated
soil below the swale base. That is now some 18m deep, and we can expect all
swales in effect to store vast quantities of water adjacent to the swale. After
a few years, trees planted below the line of the swale are drought immune and
add their share of condensation moisture to precipitation.

A landscape of swales and trees is in effect drought proof
and eternally productive. Thus we believe that all such earthworks should be
not only tax deductible but encouraged by all authorities in order to restore
landscapes to health.

We have inspected 60 year old swales that FD Roosevelt had
people build through deserts, Dug by FDR’s corps of workers in the 1930’s. They
have never ceased to stabilise the dry lands evaporation and erosion and grow
large trees.

A proportion of all state money should always go towards the
construction of swales in cities and all farms. This we see as a national
priority to off set desertification and global warming.

Swales need to be part of every subdivision plan and are
easily placed in open forests because it is possible to dig above and below the
survey line and thus around trees. The only places where swales are not
recommended by us are the steep slump slopes of deforested basalt flows. These
are liable to slump with high water content in the soil.

It is safe for wheeled tractors to create swales up to 12% slope.
Above this they must be hand dug or made by crawler excavators.

We believe it is possible to restore the entire Murray – Darling system
with a national swaling program for the system. This would be a permanent
solution for river flow but would never cope with lavish irrigation of
unsuitable crops such as rice and cotton.

In Tucson
those gardens we have swaled from the downpipe are noticeably green while
others are desert gardens.

Rainwater from roofs should be stored in large tanks for
every house and impeding bylaws that prevent this should be nullified. Every
building can supply its own water needs. Some commercial buildings can supply
water for many homes.

We support a 100% government subsidy for the purchase,
construction and fittings for rainwater tanks.

All civil engineers must be instructed on uses of swales to
accept road run-off on both sides of the road to grow rows of trees as seen in Mexico,
and NEVER to concentrate run-off in concrete pipes and shoot it down hill from
the road. In this way they have created gullies by our roads.

Directed to go back and swale all of our water. Every desert
gulch has been created by civil engineers. Australia can not afford any such
incidents. The civil engineer of Pt Augusta created swales and so this town
looks like a forest when approached.

Wycheproof collects the water from all housing roofing and
pumps it out to holding lagoons for public use. Ideally such lagoons should be
roofed to prevent evaporation or covered with floating white blocks to reflect
the sun, as in South Africa.

> From: miltech at bigpond.com
> To: pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
> Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:08:11 +1000
> Subject: Re: [Pil-pc-oceania] Following APC 9
> 
> Hi Russ,
> You are being a bit insightful yourself here and very laconic in your fluent
> style this day.  I say get something together on water and let's run it by
> as many thinkers and practitioners as we can.  I will help if you want me
> to.  The Future Ready will be over in a few days and I will be right for a
> bit of a challenge....above the local and personal ones.
> 
> Also Tim send me up those 4x A4 pages and I will type them up and get them
> out there too.  Silly to hold up proceedings for an hour or so lost sleep. I
> can handle that.
> 
> Nothing like a bit of positive action to get you going.
> 
> And Russ read the Transition Handbook it is a beauty and get his name right
> it's Rob and he is just wonderful.  You will love the book and you will want
> to start straight away.  
> Good to hear you is such top form.
> Fond regards
> Janet
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Pil-pc-oceania at lists.permacultureinternational.org
> http://jasper.cmsarchitects.com/mailman/listinfo/pil-pc-oceania

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