FREE Water was ILLEGAL…He Changed That…

0:00 This Arizona neighborhood was a sun-baked urban desert, but 30 years later, [music] it's been completely transformed into an abundant native food oasis. And they started it all by breaking the law. Because before [music] the work, the streets were designed to wash all the precious rainwater down the [music] drain, leaving the ground too dry for trees and plants to grow. But one community went rogue, literally cutting holes into the city curbs because they knew where the water needed to go. And we're about to meet the water harvesting legend [music] that cracked the code for turning depleted

0:46 neighborhoods into thriving ecosystems. [music] >> Brad. >> Hey Andrew, man. >> How you doing? >> Great, man. >> [music] >> This is my original permaculture teacher from 30 years ago. I can't believe [music] how awesome this place looks. It's so different. >> Well, we keep evolving, man. That's the whole aim. So, [music] we've actually got the rainwater tanks now passively shading and cooling the garden. We've now got [music] goats, along with the chickens, and we're really diversifying the food systems. So, we're bringing in native food plants that are way more adapted to our extreme [music] heat, the drought. So, the system's becoming much more resilient. But this is what I'm really excited [music] about. This is not on our property. This is everyone's. This is public commons, public land. This is [music] the neighborhood rain-irrigated

1:33 food forestry, where we're using the street to water the street trees that shade, cool the street, and feed all those living along those street. Let's check it out. So, here we are on a neighborhood street. Our whole intention when we began was to let's change the way we look at a street. So, water flows along the street gutters, then oftentimes ends up in the storm drain. Well, what if we could capture that water before [music] it hits the storm drain? Let's look at it as a water conveyance system. It's a water source. So, we started [music] here by putting in this water harvesting traffic calming roundabout. We cut out the asphalt that was draining the water and [music] flipped it to a basin that retains the water. So, we start by planting [music] the rain before we plant any plants.

2:18 That way, the rain becomes the sole irrigation source [music] of all this vegetation. Notice that I am 6 to 8 in below the top of the curve. That [music] way, no rain that falls on this drains out. Furthermore, we catch a little bit [music] of runoff. That's why we cut the curve here to capture that. We don't let a single drop go to waste. >> So, Brad cut the curb to intercept rainwater as it flows down [music] the hill, containing it in the basin. In fact, Brad analyzed the entire street like it's a watershed. Because when it rains, the water flows from the high [music] point in the middle of the road down towards the curbs. >> So, we're standing here on the ridge line, the high point between two [music] separate watersheds. Water flows downhill, right? So, we're working with

3:04 [music] gravity. We came and we cut the street curb to enable the stormwater flowing down the street to then enter street-side basins, where we cut out the asphalt, dug down well below the elevation of the street. So, all that street runoff just pours in here and then rapidly infiltrates. >> [music] >> So, it gets off the pavement, where you got no life, and then infiltrates the unpaved area where we can grow abundant life. >> [music] >> This system retains the water. This system plants the water, doesn't drain it. When the surplus water overflows out of that, it'll drain and fill in this street-side water harvesting chicane or curb extension, which

3:49 >> [music] >> narrows the street, slowing traffic, but enables us to plant within the street. So, this whole basin that's well below the elevation of the street here fills [music] up with water. Capture well over 5,000 gallons of water a year. Then, it drains out, the overflow [music] hits the street curb, and that overflow water is then [music] caught in the next street side basin, which fills up, the water backs up on itself full, goes down [music] the street curb again, and then we catch it in the next street side basin, and [music] we just keep going. It's one after another. So, what are we using with this water?

4:35 Well, we're growing native edibles. So, this is the blue palo [music] verde, edible flowers. Mhm. Also, edible seeds. I love [music] to top my salads with these edible flowers. This is an extreme environment where we only get about 11 inches of rain a year. We have temperatures [music] that are well into the 100° F, and we have hard caliche [music] soils, hard pan, that we have to jackhammer or pickaxe through in order to plant something very often. [music] So, we're collaborating with the life that is adapted to the soils, climate, and wildlife of here. So, there's over 400 native food plants in the Sonoran Desert. We are planting out a great many of those food plants here. So, the velvet mesquite is the native carob. [music] You can grind up the pods

5:20 into edible flour. There's a great many berry plants. We've got the condalia, the wolfberry, which is our native goji berry. We've got the hackberry, the desert ironwood tree. [music] We harvest the seeds and eat it like peanuts. So, here we've got our native barrel cactus. So, when the [music] fruits are yellow, they're ready to eat. They've got kind of a citrusy [music] flavor. This is free food, grown in the public commons, available for anyone, not just people, >> [music] >> the wildlife as well. Now that we've replanted the habitat, we've got over four dozen native bird species that are now residents of the neighborhood. >> [music] >> So, let's reclaim the public commons for life, not just asphalt. This is everyone's. This is public land.

6:06 You don't have to be dependent on the grocery store. You can step right outside your door and you can harvest native food plants along the streets [music] in a way that is also enhancing your aquifer and life at the same time. These streetside water harvesting basins, they're [music] spreading citywide. We went from being the only freaks on our block [music] doing this to 75% of our neighbors on our block doing this. >> Before the work, this was a harsh, treeless environment. But now, the prototype is being developed [music] that can spread nature throughout the desert cities of the world. Because they're developing [music] the

6:52 model and we're 30 years into this prototype, I'm asking you to support this movement by donating directly to this [music] project. This money is going to go to increase this ripple effect, make this prototype [music] spread far throughout the entire city of Tucson and beyond. This is [music] what it looks like when people actually take their own futures into their own hands and fix the problems themselves from the bottom-up, grassroots. >> So, it all started right here. So, this is the very first curb cut. The thing is, this was illegal at the time.

7:38 On a Sunday morning, [music] when no one from the city was watching, we cut this. It's a little rough. We were figuring it out. We were learning. We were also scared. Like, are we going to get in trouble? But, the thing that got us over the fear is we realized this system is so messed up. [music] We're ever draining the aquifer by pumping more and more water from it, while at the same time paving over the watershed so it can't recharge itself. [music] But, we found a way that we can enable the system to recharge [music] itself. >> When did the city notice? >> So, the funny thing is the city didn't notice till 3 years after we'd done it. That's because we went to the city. So, there were so many neighbors coming to me and saying, "What's going on? Why are your plants growing so much faster than

8:24 ours? And >> [music] >> they look so much better, but we never see you watering." And then I'd show them, "Oh, look, we're cutting the street curb to bring the street runoff to be the water source." >> [music] >> So, we want to do that. Okay, well, there's a problem. This is illegal. That's when I realized, [music] "Okay, I can't just do this on my own on my own place anymore. [music] I got to go big. And in order to go big, I'm going to have to rat myself [music] out. I'm going to have to go to the city and admit that I broke the law in a way that [music] hopefully would help change the law." >> And Brad did change the law. Because of Brad's work, rainwater harvesting is now mandatory on all new commercial properties and road construction. And homeowners get a $2,000 rebate for

9:10 adding [music] street-side rainwater harvesting basins to their properties. >> A guerrilla action helped shift city policy. >> And the city even created a whole department for harvesting rainwater and growing trees, called Storm to [music] Shade. >> The Storm to Shade program truly is the city's adoption and institutionalization and elevation of all of the pioneering work that Brad did over [music] years and years below the radar, but then bringing it to the city. So, we are standing in a traffic calming chicane, also called a curb bump out, and we design it so that the elevations at the entrances and exits and then within the basin [music]

9:55 are ideal for capturing the stormwater that's coming from that road. The water flows in, gets held up in the sediment trap for a moment, then it overflows beyond the sediment trap, and that encounters a check dam to slow it down again, allow it to infiltrate. >> As Brad evolves his designs and long-term stewardship protocols, the city is following his innovations. >> Here we have the latest and greatest of curb cuts. Brad has been cutting curbs for a very long time. He did it so well with the technology he had available to him, and now we have standard details in construction documents that actually tell construction contractors exactly how to cut a curb. There is a basin that starts here, but

10:42 that flows into another basin, another basin. We've added dozens and dozens of native trees, a ton of beautiful native wildflowers, and [music] transformed what was literally a dirt lot into this thriving, dynamic, [music] abundant piece of Sonoran Desert. The city of Tucson is truly doing what Brad did just on larger scale and across the entire city. >> This work really is culture change [music] work. You can now go to any neighborhood in the city of Tucson and find this happening. >> I can't believe how much work [music] you guys have done. >> We've got over 10 water harvesting traffic circles, and over [music] 150 streetside water harvesting basins in

11:27 this neighborhood alone. >> These traffic circles, there's a whole ecosystem happening right in the middle of the intersection. >> Oh, yeah. We've got a lot of endangered species [music] that we're growing in these public rights-of-ways that you would never expect to find in the urban core. >> Seems like you're actually starting to get this real canopy coverage casting a lot of shade over the streets and the whole neighborhood. >> This is one of the sweet spots for sure. And this is how we want it all throughout the neighborhood. >> This is so much better than when we started. >> Yeah. >> But honestly, my vision is so much more than you see today. >> [music] >> The goal is to get to the point that we've got canopy on one side of the street touching the canopy on the other side of the street. So, you're just in continuous shade the whole way.

12:14 >> Hey Brad, honestly, I think we need to stop. It is getting way too hot. I think we need to break for the afternoon. >> Yeah, as you're experiencing right now, it's well over 100°. We've never experienced that before in March, but it is happening. >> But uh before we break for the afternoon, actually, there's one more thing I want to test out. >> Okay. >> All right, before we break from the heat today, I want to demonstrate something that I think that you are going to find really interesting. [music] This is an infrared thermometer that when you shoot this beam at any surface, [music] it tells you the temperature. Let's go find the spot that's been baking in the sun. When I measure [music] this pavement, the surface temperature is about 127°

13:02 [music] Fahrenheit or about 53° Celsius. When I walk over to this water harvesting basin here and I measure in a shady nook, the soil temperature is down below 97° Fahrenheit or 36° [music] Celsius. So, that is a 30° Fahrenheit temperature change between the exposed asphalt and the shaded soil in these basins. There's this phenomenon called the heat island effect. When you have these really massive expanses of asphalt and buildings, roads, they absorb heat. [music] And the cumulative effect is you

13:48 create an island of heat, making a hotter environment hotter and hotter. >> We are approaching 30 days of 110° plus. >> The outdoor spaces [music] are becoming uninhabitable now. >> Our last electricity bill was over $350. [music] >> Extreme heat from across the country has killed dozens of people. >> Three people in Pima County have died. >> Four people died. >> 12 people have died. [music] >> Heat has been suspected in hundreds of deaths. >> Look, I know this is really heavy to talk about, [music] but nearly 800 people died from heat in Arizona during the 2023 [music] heat wave alone. But acknowledging the problem is the first step to fixing it. >> My name is Anand. I grew up [music] in Tucson. I've been here since I was about

14:34 3 years old. And definitely like noticed the uptick [music] in heat since since then. You used to be able to run around here barefoot, but not really anymore. A lot of people have the feeling of like an imposing >> [music] >> kind of danger. The hotter it gets, the more that people who aren't able to afford air conditioning going [music] to get sick and die. >> Looking the other way isn't going to help. >> When I first read like one of Brad's books, [music] like the thing that really stood out to me was like, "Anybody can move dirt. You literally just need a shovel." I know so many young people [music] who are like motivated and really wanting to get out there and who are getting out there. There is all kinds of [music] momentum here. We are building more basins. We are planning [music] more trees.

15:22 We are capturing more rainwater than [music] we've ever captured before. Everywhere [music] where there is rain, this can happen. This project is directly [music] demonstrating the solution to the heat island effect. When Brad first started this project, he had a vision, but other people couldn't even imagine this. So, he literally wrote a book in order to explain how to do this for others. So, if you want to know how to do this for others [music] there's a whole series of books that Brad's written that puts this all out into technical [music] detail. And I've gone through these books over the years and gained a ton of insight for my own work.

16:11 So, Brad, you were my permaculture teacher 30 years ago. I mean, I've seen it since these trees here were just little [music] twigs newly planted in the ground. I can see the long arc of this project here and what you've accomplished. [music] I'm curious, if you had more resources, how would you create an even bigger impact? >> If we had more resources, we would make this work even more accessible and spread even further. >> [music] >> We could dramatically improve and continue to evolve our tools, so [music] people don't have to create from scratch whole designs, but they can [music] just get the design for free, take it to the city, get the permit. Every year, we plant over a million [music] and a quarter gallons of storm water. Planted

16:57 over 1,800 native food bearing trees in this neighborhood alone. Thousands [music] of multi-use understory plants. And this is just one neighborhood. What if every neighborhood in Tucson was [music] doing this? What if every neighborhood statewide were doing this? We're transforming [music] from black asphalt and concrete into these regenerative thriving living environments so people can [music] see what's possible. >> After I took my first permaculture class in 1996, when I came back from that class, I was like, this is it. This is what I [music] want to do with my life. So that inspiration is what actually triggered my life's work. So it's [music] really special coming back here and I can just see the

17:43 long-term [music] application of persistence, will, and integrity in Brad and in the community [music] and really paying off where you have species returning, you have the temperature starting to lower, [music] where you have massive amounts of water soaking into the ground, and where you actually have food security from native plants in a whole region. If you're one of the visionaries that believes [music] in an ecological future where humans and nature can actually live harmoniously on [music] this planet, then this is a great project for you to be supporting. This went from illegal to mandatory [music] because it's just that effective. This is the road map that's going to enable our vision for the

18:29 future to come to fruition. Are you feeling inspired by this video? Well, there's three ways that you can support [music] this work. Contribute directly to the project from this video. Sign up for the Patreon with exclusive content and extended interviews. Visit earthrepair.fund and help make the next fundraising video possible. So [music] follow the QR codes, click the links, and let's make this happen.