Government subsidized permaculture idea

My area is having water problems much like CA. I know that it is a mix of various factors but I believe is largely agriculture practice based. I've seen the floods a bit of snow melt causes on wheat fields. There is 0 soak in to recharge the aquifers because the soil is so damaged. Add that to irrigation and oil usage and you've got a problem.

Anyway, my husband and I were discussing various methods to solve this issue and he suggested gopher hole type things to help with aquifer recharge. French drains is what I'm likening them to. A good idea except we wouldn't want farmers doing it since then we'd have fertilizer and pesticide water going direct to the aquifers. So we thought average Joe's such as ourselves could do it by practicing permaculture. Only the east side of our county is in this water test area and there are a TON of people on small acreages. I would say most of these people do absolutely nothing. It's like the suburbs with more space between houses and a horse thrown in. Add all of those people up and you have a lot of acreage and a lot of ability to change. Wouldn't it be incredible if you got reduced property taxes or something like that if you put in a few water harvesting features. We'd have more water everywhere and a much better climate.

Dare to dream I suppose.

if everyone added half an inch of compost to the tops of their soil that alone would help hold a lot more water and helps immensely. They are studying that in California and have found the difference even with 1/4 inch of compost is huge. it might also be easier to apply compost than to do something with holes.

Meryt Helmer wrote:if everyone added half an inch of compost to the tops of their soil that alone would help hold a lot more water and helps immensely. They are studying that in California and have found the difference even with 1/4 inch of compost is huge. it might also be easier to apply compost than to do something with holes.

That could work too! But no one will do it on their own. If there is a financial incentive, however, BAM thousands of acres holding water.

Of course there is a financial incentive, without the government stepping up and paying people. Problem with it is that people do not see how things are connected, so they don't get it until someone hands them a dollar for doing a thing. When doing the thing results in them paying five dollars less for something, few people understand that they just got five dollars for doing the thing....

Peter Ellis wrote:Of course there is a financial incentive, without the government stepping up and paying people. Problem with it is that people do not see how things are connected, so they don't get it until someone hands them a dollar for doing a thing. When doing the thing results in them paying five dollars less for something, few people understand that they just got five dollars for doing the thing....

I think we all realize that it'll be better for these people to harvest water. No water means no water for anyone. People just don't get it. So yeah, a government subsidy for it would go a long way. I think reducing property taxes would be a good way of going about it. Now to get that to the people who matter.............

Those with horses, goats, hens can all be part of the solution. maybe leave some signs at feed stores about it.

they are working on a financial incentives in California for applying the compost and also working on teaching farmers alternatives to tilling and showing them how applying the compost can help them save money. California produces a huge amount of carbon being put into the atmosphere every year compared to other states but applying the compost also sequesters carbon and there is a goal here to produce enough compost to cover enough of the state with a very thin layer and do some other things to completely offset the carbon emissions. they are doing the research and the math and by doing it the soil will hold significantly more water. I think if you are serious about doing this you should look into contacting the people at the Marin Carbon Project and I feel like I mention it in so many posts here it sounds like I work for them or something but really I was just really impressed by a talk I went to about it. all the research and science gave me so much hope for the future and the planet and the world my children and their children will live in. they are doing what you are talking about wanting to do though so it seems like talking to them and finding other people in other places doing stuff like what you want to do would be part of the work to find the best solution for your location. http://www.marincarbonproject.org/

Meryt Helmer wrote:they are working on a financial incentives in California for applying the compost and also working on teaching farmers alternatives to tilling and showing them how applying the compost can help them save money. California produces a huge amount of carbon being put into the atmosphere every year compared to other states but applying the compost also sequesters carbon and there is a goal here to produce enough compost to cover enough of the state with a very thin layer and do some other things to completely offset the carbon emissions. they are doing the research and the math and by doing it the soil will hold significantly more water. I think if you are serious about doing this you should look into contacting the people at the Marin Carbon Project and I feel like I mention it in so many posts here it sounds like I work for them or something but really I was just really impressed by a talk I went to about it. all the research and science gave me so much hope for the future and the planet and the world my children and their children will live in. they are doing what you are talking about wanting to do though so it seems like talking to them and finding other people in other places doing stuff like what you want to do would be part of the work to find the best solution for your location. http://www.marincarbonproject.org/

That is perfect. I'm going to see what I can do to get that into the committee.