permaculture

[Elfpermacl@aol.com]

Thanks, Jack.  that is closer to what I would have expected costs to be.
State of Texas gives much higher per gallon figures, based on actually
analysis of projects.  I'm don't recall how they figured labor, which may be
part of the issue. 

What is you estimate of liklihood of success for people with zero  prior
experience in ferrocement.  In most places, it is essentially impossible to
find people with experience.

Your comments also underscore that any form of roof catchment is very
expensive if you have already paid for a well.  Since most permaculturists
will hopefully NOT  build new but work with the existing housing stock, we are
likely to have paid for existing wells in the purchase price.  Neither of the
houses here at Barking Frogs Farm, for example, even came with gutters and one
doesn't even have an overhang!  (And while we WILL rectify that, we have been
agonizing over the cost of various options.)  

Where costs are equal, more or less, it is I think morally imperative to use
rain and surface water before mining ground water.  Where there is a large
disparity between maintaining existing well systems and installing roof
catchment, it seems to me also morally imperative to examine what other
important things can be done with that money, not to mention the TIME from
other permaculture tasks in building something essentially lifeless.
Obviously security is also an issue--here in the hurricane and tornado belt it
is predictable that we will be out of electricity to run pumps of extended
periods say, every decade or so, probably more often with the increased energy
in the atmosphere due to so-called "global warming."  

I'm raising these various concerns partly, perhaps mainly, to make it clear to
readers on this list that although rooftop catchment is always considered in
permaculture, it is not always the best option.  Knee-jerk construction of
roof catchment (or, alas, swales which have been often built with absolutely
no design thought in parts of the US, supposedly as "permaculture") is not
permaculture.  We start by considering all the factors.  

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since 1982),
Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and annual correspondence
courses via email.  Copyright, 1998, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52,
Sparr FL 32192 USA  Internships. YankeePerm@aol.com  

We don't have time to rush.

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