Dig a Neighborhood Rain Pond
Every neighborhood has a low point. That’s usually a good place for a neighborhood park with a rain pond. Currently, stormwater management engineers would build a retention basin there and put a chain link fence around it; don’t let them do it because those things are hideous and fill up with junk washed in during a storm. Let it be a pond that holds water instead, and which people can enjoy. It does the very same jobs the engineers were looking for of slowing runoff and recharging groundwater, but it does those jobs beautifully.
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Plant a Block Rain Garden
Every block has a low point as well; often, it’s somewhere along the street, as builders try to make each lot slope to the street. The swale between the sidewalk and the curb is a great spot for a rain garden, which is planted with thirsty plants that slurp up rainwater quickly and also help recharge groundwater.
Who can do this? I can, or I and the neighbors on my block can.
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Build a Rain Pool
If your site is flat, build it at the low point of the site. A small pump can be used to pump it up to a storage tank where it can gravity-flow to water your garden. If your site is large or if you own a pair of houses and rent one, with a garden in the middle (the smallest type of house cluster) you may need rain troughs to carry the water to the pool. The Spanish have built rain troughs for centuries. Those at the Alhambra are gorgeous but expensive, but you can build them really inexpensively as well.
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Build a Cistern
Rainwater captured from your rooftop is usually cleaner than that captured from the ground, especially if you have a cleaner roofing type like metal. If you store the water in a cistern and filter it in some way, you may even be able to drink it. At the very least, you can use it for flushing toilets.
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Catch Rainwater in a Barrel
If you can’t build a cistern for some reason, you can still catch water in a rain barrel. Rain barrels are normally used for watering gardens, and they’re really simple to use. They come with a faucet at the bottom; just attach a hose and open the faucet when you want to water the garden.
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Get a Water Filter
Plastic bottles and styrofoam cups are a great waste of oil and huge polluters of land and sea. Every home and every workplace should have a water filter so you can use a glass or ceramic drinking vessel and wash it afterwards instead of throwing it away. In the words of author Bill McDonough, “there is no ‘away’.” Everything goes somewhere.
Who can do this? You can.
What does it cost? Filters like this cost as little as $9.95.