WMG In The News
Green Valley News & Sun - WMG Certification Program Expansion
Water harvesting training to expand in 2010
Published: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 12:42 PM MST
As Southern Arizona’s green economy grows, many people seek training for careers in green businesses that can match their values as well as provide a livelihood.
As evidence of this trend, Tucson-based nonprofit Watershed Management Group has seen overwhelming interest in its WMG Water Harvesting Certification program, a hands-on training program in water harvesting systems design and construction.
To meet this demand, WMG is more than doubling its course offerings in 2010, including an expansion of the program into metro Phoenix.
The WMG Water Harvesting Certification program is the only one of its kind in the nation, providing some 60 hours of hands-on training in design and installation of water harvesting earthworks, cisterns, greywater systems, and sustainable landscaping.
Az Daily Star - WMG Installs Cistern at Manzo Elementary
Kids learn to be water-savvy
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 11.20.2009
Two cisterns have been installed in front of Manzo Elementary School in an effort to teach kids about water conservation. The cisterns, which hold more than 2,000 gallons each, will collect rain to be used to water native plants. The school, near West Speedway and North Grande Avenue, received grants from the Home Depot and the Watershed Management Group. It also received funding from the University of Arizona.
Stormwater Retention Basins Blog Entry
Nick Irvine, a water harvesting installer in Phoenix and WMG Certification graduate, posted a blog entry about a recent WMG workshop he participated in. The following is an excerpt; for the full article with photos, click here.
"As I pull onto the street, I already see the digging sites. They have excavated some of the area in preparation for our class. I also see a few giant mountains of materials. Some gravel, some rip-rap (large boulders and rocks) and a pile of shredded tree parts (mulch). We begin with a circle around some bagels and a discussion of the reason for this project.
The Issues: Pollution running downstream from car oil, trash, feces and other chemicals. Also, there is the air pollution from passing cars, noise pollution from students arriving and leaving the UA games, and the intense heat due to almost no shade along the sidewalk.
The Solution: A healthy array of native trees and plants along the streets. The basins Job, hold the plantings will gather street runoff (including all of the bad stuff it contains!). The plants job, in a way, to dilute the pollution downstream. They will trap and breakdown the toxins and oils slowly...added bonus---> it also catches litter where neighbors are more likely to pick it up. The alternative is that the trash makes it into washes, where not many people will go to pick it up! Cool bonus huh? well, not nessesarily for the neighbors I guess."
To read the full article, click here.
WMG Co-op Workshop, Blog Entry - Oct 2009
Martha Retallick, a WMG Co-op Member in Tucson, posted a blog entry about a recent WMG Co-op workshop she hosted. The following is an excerpt; for the full article with photos, click here.
" I wanted replace the old wall with something more attractive. Since I'm a member of the Watershed Management Group's Water Harvesting Co-op, I had a great opportunity to enlist others in working and learning project.
WMG's Matthew Bertrand and I formulated a plan: We'd replace the wall with a rock garden full of low water use plants. (The new plants would fill in the outermost zone of my xeriscape, which is the arid zone. The other two zones are oais, which is closest to the house, and transitional, between the oasis and the arid zone.)"
Full Story with photos: click here
WMG was recently featured in the Desert Leaf:
(Vol. 3, Number 27, July-August 2009)
No Drop Left Behind
by Katherine Jacobson
The last thing Francine Shacter thought she had to worry about when she moved to the Catalina Foothills seven years ago was becoming a flood victim. She knew that her house was surrounded by, as she describes it, barren hillsides and mounds of river rock haphazardly piled up on the steepest parts of the property. After watching uncontrolled storm water carrying loads of silt and debris off her property, she began to fear that the hillside upon which her house was built could be undercut.
The help she found was with the Watershed Management Group (WMG), a Tucson-based nonprofit organization. Local, sustainable, community-oriented, they train people how to harvest rainwater so that the water stays on the property, nourishing the plants and reducing the need for irrigation. The WMG has a formal program to train community members to become instructors in water-harvesting techniques. The training includes learning the mechanics and theories of soil erosion, measuring slopes, tracking current runoff patterns and evaluating on-site resources such as mature plantings or impervious driveways...
To read the entire article, follow this link.