Pump test on a new well in Payson. Photo: Scott Stratton

Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands, Volume. 1: Guiding Principles to Welcome Rain Into Your Life and Landscape
Brad Lancaster, 183 pp., $24.95, self-published by Rainsources Press at http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/
This is the first volume of what is to be a three-volume guide on conceptualizing, designing and implementing sustainable water-harvesting systems for home, landscape and community. The concept is explained, with specific information provided about effective water harvesting strategies for various site conditions. Information ranges from designing new water-harvesting landscapes to retrofitting existing ones. Amply illustrated, the volume is written in a clear, nontechnical style to attract the interest of nonprofessionals and homeowners as well as planners, designers and landscapers. Water-harvesting Earthworks, volume 2 in the series, is scheduled for summer 2006 and Roof Catchment and Cistern Systems, volume 3, will be out in fall 2006.

Arsenic and Groundwater: Questions, Answers and Solutions
Jan. 23 is the deadline for water agencies to meet new Environmental Protection Agency standards for arsenic in drinking water. Left on their own are the many suburban homeowners and resident of rural areas who depend on their own wells for drinking water. How do they find out if there’s arsenic in their wells or coming out of the taps in their home? What steps can they take to get the arsenic contamination down to the level that EPA has determined to be safe. The American Ground Water Trust, a non-profit public service agency, recently published a guide to answer these and many other questions about arsenic and groundwater.

The 24-page guide explains the geologic origins of arsenic, its occurrence in groundwater, arsenic related health issues and methods to remove or reduce arsenic levels. Check the AGWT’s web site for information about the publication: http://www.agwt.org/

Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America
Bruce Babbitt, Island Press at www.islandpress.org, 200 pp., $25.95.

Babbitt offers a proposal for a new national land use policy, one that protects our rapidly disappearing landscapes and dwindling rivers and controls urban sprawl. He argues that heedless development has too often had its way, with government subsidizing sprawl and local officials mostly unwilling or unable to halt the momentum for development. Babbitt’s aim is not to join the chorus lamenting and condemning land developers. Instead he wants to get to what he sees as the root of the problem: the failure of state and local governments to adopt effective land use regulations to control sprawl.

The solution to the problem according to Babbitt is stronger federal leadership in land use planning. He realizes he will be raising some hackles with this proposition; land use has come to be seen as very much a local matter. He argues, however, that the national government’s involvement in land use planning can be traced to the early days of the republic.

In making his case for a strong federal role in land use planning, Babbitt identifies issues that are of national and, therefore, federal interest: protecting endangered and threatened species, the health of rivers that cross state lines, coastlines, forests, and regions of special scenic, ecological or historic significance.
The various chapters are case studies of success stories, each demonstrating elements that can be applied to other regions of the country. In the discussions Babbitt at times calls for additional federal legislation to improve land use planning.

He lauds the Endangered Species Act as one of the most effective federal laws influencing land use. He says it served Tucson well. In response to a development moratorium on lands occupied by the spotted owl, Pima County Supervisors took the extra steps to enact a county-wide general plan to protect riparian areas, sensitive species and core biological areas throughout the county.

Babbitt also argues for a revision of the Clean Water Act to promote firmer federal-state partnerships in managing water resource use and in regulating the effects of land use on rivers and lakes.

Babbitt’s suggestion of extending the ESA to encourage protection of critical ecosystems and open space throughout the country comes at a time when, according to one newspaper headline, the ESA is in the cross hairs. Legislative efforts are underway to make the 32-year-old law more friendly to landowners and builders, with less accommodation to environmental interests. In fact, much of what Babbitt proposes in his book might seem sadly out of step in the prevailing political climate.

Undeterred, Babbitt calls for “an armistice followed by a peace conference to which not just westerners, but all Americans, are invited. The outcome should be a new constitution for public lands, in the form of federal legislation that subordinates but does not eliminate mining, grazing, and logging to an overriding public mandate for long-term biological diversity, abundant wildlife and fisheries and the ecological integrity of our streams and watersheds.”