Cactus Rain was honored to educate and exchange ideas with Albuquerque based recipients of the Bezos Earth Fund Greening America’s Cities grant in a 2 day workshop held October 16th and 17th.
This hands-on, site-specific workshop guided experienced practitioners from New Mexico’s sustainable agriculture community through the practical and ecological dimensions of active and passive rainwater harvesting and graywater reuse to enhance food production, support ecological regeneration and build long-term climate resilience. Participants included members from La Cosecha /Agri-Cultura Network, Los Jardines Institute, Center for Social Sustainable Systems (CESSOS), La Semilla Project, Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) and Yes!Housing.
We were joined in facilitating discussions with representatives from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife, Bernalillo County, Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN), Coalition of Sustainable Communities New Mexico (CSCNM), the New Mexico Foundation and Consensus Planning.
Presentations and discussions centered on rainwater basics in the desert: hydrology, rainfall patterns, & collection principles; active systems: roof runoff, conveyance methods, cistern types, sizing, siting, & phased installation; passive design: swales, berms, rain gardens, infiltration basins, & integrating these into landscape design; pollution & bioremediation: treating urban runoff from streets & roofs with natural systems; from capture to use: irrigating urban gardens with stored rainwater and intro to graywater: overview of low-tech, gravity-fed systems for garden-scale reuse. This workshop focused on practical applications as well as conceptual knowledge so also included site visits and collaborative planning charrettes at three sites.
Day 1 began at the South Valley Economic Development Center (SVEDC) where Cactus Rain kicked off the workshop by presenting “Planting the Rain: Rainwater Harvesting, Greywater Recycling” which provided an in-depth overview of systems which can be designed to passively and actively harvest rainwater for irrigation and potable use and reuse graywater to irrigate landscapes and flush toilets.
In the afternoon, workshop attendees visited one of Cactus Rain’s client’s home in Albuquerque’s North Valley to tour an examples of whole house greywater recycling and passive/active rainwater harvesting systems then travelled to Los Jardines Institute and the site of La Cosecha /Agri-Cultura Network’s planned community farm - Raices Sagradas - to explore options for greywater recycling and rainwater harvesting.
On Day 2, workshop attendees met at the Resilience Hub to review lessons learned highlights from Day 1 and discuss costs, permitting and regulations surrounding rainwater/greywater systems design and installation.
Participant Feedback
- Many attendees mentioned that they had not seen real world examples of most of the water conservation systems Cactus Rain designs and installs so mentioned how excited they were to see “planting the rain” in action
- Attendees also noted how much they appreciated learning about the factors involved in determining rain tank size and placement options, types of passive earthworks and graywater friendly plants, permitting regulations for rainwater harvesting and graywater recycling plus seeing examples of tree centered guilds in rain gardens
- Attendees also shared how, like plants, humans grow and thrive better together than separately
Have a rainwater, greywater or permaculture topic you'd like presented in a one or multi-day workshop? We are currently booking these for 2025-2026. Contact us to get started.