The reason I post this and similar articles is to promote getting away from the system that has been created for us. The system has given us genetically modified foods and organisms, it has legal rights over living things, promotes the use of pills to fix everything, commits acts of terror to start wars, and serves nothing but itself. Water is essential for life, the less you have to rely on external sources for this and other truly important needs in your life the more self sufficient you are; and the more able to stand up to the changing winds of time. -ed

source: Press Democrat

Kelley Keogh never thought the two inches of rain that pelted the roof of her 1,650-square-foot Santa Rosa home would be enough to irrigate her backyard fruit trees and vegetable garden for nearly two months.

But that rain on an early May day was nearly filled a 3,000-gallon, 10-foot-tall water storage tank she had just installed with the help of $750 the city had given her toward its purchase.

Over the next six weeks, Keogh relied on the stored water instead of city-supplied water to hand irrigate three lemon and peach trees and a vegetable garden in the backyard of her Sleepy Hollow Court home.

Keogh said she “milked” the storage to make the rain water last, enough to see her monthly water use drop by 4,000 to 5,000 gallons in May and June.

Keogh estimates she’s spent $4,000 on the conservation system. That which includes another $650 the city paid her toward the purchase of a 2,600-gallon storage tank that also sits in the backyard. Both are connected to the downspouts to capture rain whenever it falls.

The $1,400 paid to Keogh is the result of a new “Rainwater Harvesting” water conservation program being pushed by the city of Santa Rosa.

Keogh is the first of what the city hopes will be a stream of home and business owners willing to cash in on it’s newest water conservation incentive.

Dan Muelrath, the city’s water conservation coordinator, said the city will pay 25-cents for each gallon of rainwater storage a homeowner or business owner is willing to install.

The rebate is capped at the amount of storage equal to the amount of city-supplied water the site would use in a peak month. And the minimum size tank required to qualify for the program is 100 gallons.

Muelrath said the benefit of the tanks will be realized in the spring and fall months when rain can fill them up repeatedly after they are drained to irrigate gardens, trees and landscaping.

Most tanks, he said, won’t hold enough water from spring seasonal rains “to even make it to the middle of summer.”

He said the harvesting program is the latest city effort to reduce demand on the its Russian River water supply, a source limited in quantity and increasingly in demand during hot summer months when outdoor irrigation peaks.

Over the past 15 years the city has spent more than $8 million to replace more than 50,000 water-guzzling toilets in homes and businesses, a move city officials say has reduced demand on water deliveries by more than 600 million gallons a year.

Two years ago the city began paying home and business owners up to $250 and business owners up to $5,000, or 50-cents a square foot, for each square foot of lawn they tear out and replace with drought tolerant landscaping. To date, the city has spent $225,000 and replaced 775,000-square-feet of lawn.

Most of the rebates are financed by grants the city receives or from the monthly water rates paid by the city’s 50,000 residential and business water customers.

While the program can save home and business owners a bit of money on their water bills, Keogh said her reasons go deeper than the dollars she might save.

At 51, Keogh travels the world as an environmental consultant, auditing recycling facilities to ensure they comply with with health and safety standards and that their workers are treated and paid fairly.

“While I was in Ethiopia in March I saw women go four to five hours a day carrying water on their backs” to keep their families alive, she said.

“I came back and I was appalled by our waste,” she said. She and her husband have torn out their backyard lawn, installed drought resistant plants and a a high-tech irrigation system that reduces unnecessary watering.

“I have grand-babies and I want Sonoma County to have groundwater and drinking water for them. If we keep letting it run into our creeks and paving everything over, we cannot continue to live sustainably,” she said.

Keogh said she’s so driven by saving water that she’s “seriously” considering adding similar-sized tanks in her front-yard, a move she admits would draw the wrath of her husband and neighbors.

While the tanks she’s placed in her backyard can barely be seen over a side-yard fence, there’s no cover in her smallish front yard to hide such a polyurethane behemoth.

“These are not baby tanks,” she said, noting they reach to the bottom of her roof-line.

“Maybe we could put in a stainless steel tank and look like a winery, she joked.