Ben Brownell

Hi Susan, see if you can access the message I just sent you via Permies, which has my email address that you can use for direct communication. If you have trouble accessing that message let me know, but it should show if you click the envelope icon top right corner of the page, next to notification bell icon, when logged in to the forum. Happy to see what I can do to help! Selma is a good area to look in, there's a few more I can suggest with a better sense of your preferences too.

Zach Weiss is doing a lot to educate and mobilize people around local water storage and enhancement projects at https://www.waterstories.com

I haven't taken any of their (somewhat costly) courses, but enjoy the highlight vids and community discussion on mighty networks.

Currently testing out some smaller scale collection ponds I was able to excavate with rented backhoe last spring, as I experiment with optimal configuration in somewhat challenging climate and hydrology. Good amount of surface water available during wet season, but pond basins will dry out usually by mid summer, and then I worry may contribute to greater *loss* of soil moisture during the rest of the year...

I think in semi-arid or Mediterranean climate like this, it's important to emphasize pond depth over surface area, and perhaps line the side walls with stone, clay, or synthetic liner to limit evaporative loss? And ideally, get trees established around the margin to help protect it.

Anyways, fun stuff to tinker with and see what works! Good to have more people aware and working together at watershed scale, ultimately.

I'm pretty familiar with property market and location scouting in those areas with Permaculture parameters in mind, happy to help with your search if you'd consider very modest consulting fee? Feel free to message me contact info if you'd like to chat and see what could work! Should work out to significant net cost savings for you, especially if realtor involvement is minimized.

Believe the website you meant to link is drillawell.com

Looks like that system might work in certain conditions, but you would really need to do some investigations to avoid disappointment. Key things to study: soil composition, local geology and hydrology, source/install/assembly of well pipe, pump, hardware etc.

You probably won't be drilling through bedrock with that equipment, so figure out how much of what kind of soil you're sitting on. Soft loose sandy soil won't hold up well, side walls will collapse as you go. I didn't look at the specifics of how piping is installed as you drill, but that can be tricky and demanding on its own.

As noted by John, you may do much better simply setting up to collect precipitation and work with that. Do the math, many thousand gallons can be gathered in a small area!

Reviving this post as I'm still exploring a range of options for the future of the property, and think it might speak to a few people here leaning towards the 'wild' side of productive land stewardship! Also exploring a low cost stakeholder trial/entry point that would take things more in the direction of cooperative ownership, if a handful of people circled up around that soon.

Thirdly, my apologies to the last two replies above, somehow I missed notification of your inquiries but if still curious feel free to pipe up again here or moosage me directly

Bit of an outsider of dubious heritage, but I'll throw in Harbor Freight's Bauer line (brick red) as a possible contender here, given very low prices for an arguably pretty rugged high performance and comprehensive tool line. Have a look, they are relatively new/unknown and I think still in the process of building a rep, thus good quality for very low price at this point:

https://www.harborfreight.com/bauer

I just have a rotary hammer and air compressor so far, but in my experience and word on various forums, they are pretty legit relative to a lot of what you'd find/expect from HF.

Promising description above, but I gotta say the project website doesn't inspire a lot of confidence that this is a realistic, viable, competent endeavor...I imagine there's a lot more thought/planning behind the scenes, which your post seems to point to, but that public facing presentation could really use a more concise, polished touch! I get what you're saying about building vs launching, and maybe it's still too early to articulate who/what this community is about, but presumably it begins with a big chunk of up front capital/credit from somebody(s) with specific aims, values, tastes etc and I think at least that much should be clear from the jump to get others on board with any level of shared commitment.

Financing a large long term 'startup' community venture is hard and brings with it necessary inequality of stake, input, responsibility, governance, and at some point I think you have to embrace that and roll with it while you set out a roadmap towards more stable, grounded, cooperative sustainable structure. I'm just a little thrown off by somewhat scattered and potentially conflicting elements of the vision as expressed there, such as whether this is meant to become a city, village, or rural retreat. Intrigued, but want to share hopefully helpful critical feedback at this point. Good luck! Lots of potential around NorCal right now for smart rural revitalization and conscientious regenerative development, no doubt.

What does "better/beneficial" ground cover look like for context there? What's your aim? No idea what look or function you're going for, so it's hard to suggest a ruggedized alternative, but I'd say if you're doing a 'hard reset' and can pull back top soil, add an inch layer of biochar covered by a layer of burlap fabric, then cover with 3-4" top soil and plant whatever will form a good dense surface root zone or sod layer and it should be solid, after a season or two. Transplanting cut sod (doesn't have to be lawn) would be set much faster.

Edit to add: definitely aim for sandy loam top layer rather than clay, to limit mud and slipperiness.

Fun wide-ranging convo, just jumped around through some of the replay. I met Stephen a few times in early 2000s as the Punta Mona project was growing, it was quite an inspiration then.

Some key points come out towards the end, where it's clear his approach is very much as a 'themed' real estate developer. I'm not sure this is the best or only approach to successful sustainable community, but it is effective and efficient in the current context since it's a (working) model many are familiar with, and capital is available to activate. Also important to note how much learning curve there is for all participants, continuously, such that people may ultimately 'graduate' from somewhat more conventional developments into more fully cooperative creative spaces, and/or serve as mentors and guides for others stepping in.