Barbara Wishingrad and her crew of water wizards at the Sweetwater Collaborative are teaching Santa Barbara drought-weary citizens that what is old is still new. Where City Hall is now spending $60 million on a new-yet-ironically-old desalination plant, members of the Sweetwater Collaborative are systematically redefining “beautiful” in very-old-but-still-new water-wise terms. Exalting a landscape Wishingrad describes as “The American Riviera,” the collaborative promotes native, drought-tolerant vegetation and water uses that have evolved over the centuries in semiarid environments.
“We’re talking about astonishingly beautiful gardens without using so very much of our water,” she said. “It’s not necessary to use 50 percent of our drinkable water on our landscaping and flush so much of it down the toilet.” And Wishingrad isn’t just talking the talk. The Sweetwater Collaborative offers hands-on, detailed instruction on how to use less water while doing more. Twice a month, Sweetwater runs 90-minute classes on how to capture “run-on” water rather than “run-off,” using simple, low-tech steps to redirect and store water that would otherwise race down gutters, and how to reuse the gray water that flows from Santa Barbara washing machines daily. In addition, the collaborative leads in-depth workshops on how to reconfigure Santa Barbara’s landscaped outdoor environment to effectively store rainfall. Once a month, Sweetwater hosts a workshop for landscape professionals. The whole intent, Wishingrad explained, is to capture water that would otherwise be wasted and “to slow it, to spread it, and to sink it.”
Even Sweetwater’s outreach campaign is old-fashioned. On bigger projects — actual top-to-bottom backyard permaculture makeovers that can include the creation of rain gardens, mulch basins, and down spout diversions — the group uses “the barn-raising” approach. People still learning the methods can earn sweat-equity discounts for their own projects by spending at least 20 hours transforming other backyards. Not only is that the best way to learn, said Wishingrad, but it fosters a greater sense of community.