Aqualibrium
Reprint from Life Unplugged Column, Tucson Green Times. Aprilby Susan L. Feathers
“Honey, you gotta take water in the car with you!” Admonished by the local waitress, I was slumped over the greasy lunch counter somewhere in the Imperial Valley.
A fair weather breeze had blown me from the gentle climate of San Diego down into the Sonoran Desert on a 116° day. My beach car had no air conditioning.
That experience awakened me to two basic tenets of the desert: respect the heat and never be without plenty of water.
I always remember that experience on the advent of foresummer—first phase of our bimodal summer season—when the skies are ever blue, the buildings radiate heat, and saguaro blossoms whither as red fruit ripens in the sharply hot air.
This time of year tests the fortitude of newcomers and sends the rest of us scrambling from porch chairs to the cool confines of our homes. The evaporative cooler becomes a love object.
Seasonally I find myself wondering, “How did people live here without air conditioning and tap water?”
My first week in Tucson (1999) I learned that Ofelia Zepeda, Tohono O’odham elder and University of Arizona linguistics professor, would give a reading from her book, Ocean Power.
Dr. Zepeda read in both her native language and in English, trading languages line by line. I remember closing my eyes to concentrate on the sound of this region’s first spoken language.
I learned that the Desert People honored the ocean for bringing the clouds and precious rains that filled their garden basins and allowed trees, plants, and animals – and humans to thrive.
As she read her beautiful poetry and told us stories about living in an adobe house with no air conditioning, when her people still followed the seasonal rituals calling down the rain clouds, I wondered at all the changes in the short span of her lifetime.
Yet, it appears that the Desert People lived a wonderful life before central air conditioning, municipal water systems, and flush toilets.
After the lecture I walked to my dusty car. The air was cooled by a moist breeze and the skies were filled with towering dark clouds.
It was the first week in July. The monsoon broke over the city with large cold dollops of rainwater that turned streets into raging rivers. By the time I got home, the water was up over the wheels of my car and the temperature had dropped twenty degrees.
And guess what? Most of that precious water just eroded the asphalt streets, carved deep gullies in the land or evaporated – functionally lost for human use.
Each day Tucsonans use 122,000 acre feet of water. An acre foot is 325,851 gallons of water, or, 43,535,822,000 gallons EVERY DAY.
Brad Lancaster, a local expert on rainwater harvesting, has estimated that in one typical monsoon storm, we could collectively harvest enough rain water to irrigate all our plants and trees, grow food, and even take outdoor showers – for a full year.
Does it make sense to use potable water on our landscapes and gardens when our ground water is over drafted and the Colorado River beleaguered by the drought?
Shoot, if people lived here happily for so long without the kind of creature comforts we think are indispensible, couldn’t we use new technologies to harvest water, capture the sun’s energy, cool with shade, and even live in smaller homes?
Our climate is warming and drying. So let’s not fool ourselves: we have to try something new or, it won’t be possible to sustain the current population at the same water and energy consumption.
Yet, there are people here already living off the grid and harvesting rainwater for their gardens and washing their locks in soft rainwater in a backyard spa.
Whole neighborhoods have planted trees for shade and food (citrus, almonds, apricots, and peaches) irrigating with greywater from their washing machines and dishwashers, all cleverly directing used water to thirsty root systems.
These Tucsonans are having more fun, living in lush environments, saving money on electricity and water, and building community as they do so.
They are the dreamers—ahead of the curve on climate change, living in “aqualibrium” with the desert.
Seek them out as mentors before you end up slumped over the counter like me, so clueless and imperiled.
Desert living can be a beautiful thing but with changing conditions, we’ll all need a tune up.
Resources:
Harvesting Rainwater: http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/
City of Tucson: http://www.tucsonaz.gov/ocsd/water/
Tohono O’odham: http://www.tonation-nsn.gov/
Arizona Water: http://arizonawater.org/azwater/html/index.jsp