Gardening is my calling. Through the warm season I maintain urban landscapes and grounds. Designing and building flower gardens, shrub berms and outdoor rooms is what I do; it pays the bills. Creating backyard habitats and organic wild gardens is a passion. Other aspects of landscaping such as consulting or teaching workshops, I do as well. On the front range of the Colorado Rockies, where I live, the unpredictable weather is rough. Intensity of the sunshine, unhampered by the lowest mile of atmosphere, ordains a rule of thumb: a half day of sun here equals a full day of sun in gentler climates. The thin, clear air rarely holds any humidity to speak of. Frosty late springs or early cold snaps in the fall can result in loss of fruit and crops. Cold, dry winters cause dessication injury to plants, and to people as well. It has been said that winter never truly arrives here. We experience a series of freeze-thaw, freeze-thaw, freeze-thaw; but the freeze never stays for long. Bitter cold fronts can move through pulling sixty-plus degree days behind. Moving from temperatures in the teens to a spring-like melt in one day is common, confounding the plants and perhaps people as well. As a young woman, I was never concerned about water. My garden was abundant with crops and flowers. Denver was rationing water with a simple odd/even address system, but there was plenty of water. Over the past thirty-some years, I watched the weather change. I have witnessed the deep snows become less and less frequent. Mid-winter temperatures have become warmer and warmer and mid summer temps soaring close to one hundred. At this moment, it is snowing outside. Dry sugar snow falls atop the leftover snow from the last storm. It is precious moisture, and as snow depth builds, lying in glacial fields and banks upon the mountains, the water prospects for the coming growing season improve. Colorado, and much of the rest of the nation, is currently in a drought. Dr Bob Raynolds, of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, recently gave a compelling presentation on the condition of the aquifers below the front range plains. Most of the water for urbanites living in my heavily populated area actually comes from miles away at the base of the Continental Divide. It passes through a series of pipelines and reservoirs then into the system that feeds into our homes. (As a person of permaculture, I am totally against stealing water from unpopulated wilderness areas to feed the beast of front range cities, but I am a minority here, no doubt about it.) Water sources for other small towns are small reservoirs or water deals that buy water from bigger holders. Enter the idea of water-as-commodity. Manitou Springs, my home town, has a small reservoir upon the flanks of Pikes Peak that has served this little town since it was built. There was never a water shortage until 2002 when for the first time ever water ceased to flow over the spillway. What a wakeup call it was. Other small towns ran totally dry and resorted to trucking in water. Both Manitou and Colorado Springs began serious water rationing during 2002 and continued into 2003. Rationing should stay with us through 2004 and beyond. Rationing saves us from ourselves. Dr Raynolds™ presentation focused on the other water: ground water. The front range is where the mountains spill onto the flats of the prairies. Over centuries of time water is channeled underground into the aquifers, seeping through layers of sedimentary clay, sandstone and shale. Raynolds™ research shows ground water supply for the Colorado front range between Denver and Colorado Springs is dropping. Fast. The water level drops an inch a day and is affecting wells and rural irrigation. Monitored wells track this, with the worst case losing 54' annually. What was once trumpeted as a hundred years of water source has been found unable to fulfill those goals. I felt depressed with this new knowledge, yet oddly elated. (When cold hard facts finally hit the windshield of our recklessness and there is no more doubting or glossing over the truths, then there is a certain celebration for the truth being revealed. Finally.) Even after two years of official drought the city next door still has requirements for mandatory blue grass sod on the books, loop holes for developers and, seemingly, an attitude of. This will all go away in a few years. The water supply is used by large populations with nary a thought to conserving the resource. Front range water use is as questionable as the popularity of Kentucky blue grass. All the water one needs to live falls upon his own roof Bill Mollison has said. How I envy dry land gardeners in New Mexico. Further south, dryer than this region, they have the ability to catch water and use that God given water in creative, landscape-saving ways. It is legal there to catch water. Colorado is behind New Mexico. The water in Colorado is bound tightly by law. There is so much confusion over what is and isn't legal that permaculturalists are often law breakers. There are many avenues to take to mitigate water limitations, enhance our home grounds and community commons. New ideas and techniques arise every day as the collective in my area keep on keeping on. It is rewarding to be a part of spreading the alternative message. It is serious, urgent business! Permaculture brings hope for the future. Dry lands people dream about solving water challenges. We dream of forest gardens. We dream a bright whole-system future for the children. And it will be in these dreams that we find our answers. c 2-2004 Becky Elder |