Tag: California
Mark Armfield is the owner of Armfield Design & Construction, Malibu, California.
MALIBU, California. As a boy on a bike, standing at the edge of Point Dume, gazing towards the blue horizon, Mark realized there was nowhere else to go — “This is it”. Right then he made a vow to love this land and to protect its beauty, and to one day give something back.
Fast forward a few decades and that day is now. After 25 years of working to bring environmental awareness to the construction industry, Mark takes pride in bringing to fruition only those projects that combine extreme beauty and optimum efficiency.
In the push to be environmentally responsible Mark has never forgotten about the very human need for beauty and serenity. The home as sanctuary: This is what the builder tries to create and how the family man tries to live.
Along with many environmentally advanced Malibu homes, Mark’s body of work includes:
- President – Malibu Association of Contractors
- Director of Malibu Chamber of Commerce
- Chairman – Government Affairs / City of Malibu
- Member – Malibu City Business Roundtable
- Member – City of Malibu Sustainable Building Committee
As a surfer and a builder, Mark gradually became aware of our impact on the quality of the ocean. He has committed himself to learning about what hurts the ocean and what can save the ocean from further harm.
RainCatcher
Beginning at the shore, Mark eventually started looking upstream. This lead him to the sky, to RainCatcher, to Jack Rose. Mark and Jack are studying the effects of the vast runoff from rainfall, through our cities, to the ocean. Together, right here in Malibu, they are designing prototypes for residential rainwater harvesting and storm-water management. This work is their contribution to future generations of Californians.
California RainCatcher houses will collect and store tens of thousands of gallons of fresh rainwater each year during the rainy season and then use this precious resource for landscaping during the long dry season. By the middle of the century, the fulfillment of this design will cut in half the amount of water Southern California must import every year. See photos of completed
projects in the Central Coast region of California by a landscape design company called Earthcraft Landscape Design.
This is a big, slow process that will yield great dividends a half century from now for everyone in California. But many places in the world need the water from RainCatchers right now, so: In conjunction with their local projects, Mark and Jack are bringing the same rain catching technologies to places like Africa and India so that millions of people worldwide will benefit today by not having to suffer and die from water borne diseases.
From the same Point Dume office where they imagine and construct beautiful and brilliant Malibu homes, Mark and Jack create RainCatchers for schoolhouses in Africa. Current projects include two UN Farm Schools for 700 AIDS orphans in Western Kenya.
Jack Rose, founder of RainCatcher.
Jack Rose, Raincatcher: I grew up along the coast of California with a mountain range, the Sierra Nevada, in my back yard — surfing, climbing, skiing — Living in a place where every year, like clockwork, moisture would float in from the Pacific, hit the Sierra, and drop an abundance of rain and snow. These same mountains would later provide the RainCatcher model for my current work.
If I had to give myself a job description it would be: inventor/explorer/friend.
Jack Rose Design Studio — I design interesting houses in all the hideaway places up and down California. Having grown up in a dry climate, rain falling has always been alluring for me. While living on the north shore of Kauai I began catching and drinking rain. It was the best thing I had ever tasted. A couple years later, while living on the rainy Mendocino coast, I continued catching an abundance of delicious rain. So, one day, while enjoying a glass of water-from-heaven I suddenly realized that over a billion people around the world couldn’t participate in this daily ritual that I take for granted. As a designer I gave myself the challenge to come up with a simple, cheap way for all who are chronically thirsty to receive clean, safe drinking water direct from the sky. RainCatcher was born. The purpose and goal: H2O 4 Every 1.
Reversal-of-fortune
The value of rain received, rather than rejected, is immeasurable.
Architecture, up until now, is based on the premise that “Water is the enemy” — we must shed it and get rid of it as fast as possible. Residential, commercial, industrial and municipal architects and planners all adhere to this belief.
At the same time, modern culture has been relentless in promoting this attitude. Turn to the weather on radio or TV and we are constantly told: “It’s going to be a bad day”. . . because there’s a chance of rain. And if it isn’t a bad day here we are shown all the places where it is going to be ‘miserable’, because of rain — Boston, Pittsburgh, Des Moines, you name it.
Generations have been taught to fear nature, to loathe the rain, to complain each time the garden gets watered. None of this rings true. As children we loved the rain. When we weren’t inside playing board games and making forts we were outside discovering new lakes where bean fields used to be — building Tom Sawyer rafts and having big adventures.
A primary purpose of RainCatcher is to sing praise and gratitude for weather — to instigate an attitude shift from “rain is bad, let’s get rid of it” to “rain is a blessing, let’s catch it and treasure it.” When enough of us do this, countless people around the world will experience a Reversal-of-Fortune. Water is as precious a resource as oil. Instead of tossing it aside, one day we will collect it from the roofs of every home and business structure and put it to good use.
As everyone in Africa knows, “WATER IS LIFE”. . .
The purpose and goal of RainCatcher is: H2O 4 Every 1
Jack Rose and Mark Armfield
RainCatcher — The name on the bottle tells the story of what our work is: to bring clean drinking water to everyone. Knowledge has value. We aim to capitalize on something we know to be a ‘Fact of Nature’: More than enough rain falls to earth each year to satisfy the drinking water needs of everyone.
We hear a lot about the “Global Water Shortage”, but the Fact-of-Nature is this: There isn’t a shortage of water given, just a shortage of water received. This can be remedied simply by putting a bucket under a rain storm – millions of buckets, actually, all around the world.
If every school house across Africa, India, China, South America, etc were outfitted with RainCatchers (gutters, tanks & filters), children around the world would have their own source of pure drinking water.
Our goal is to bring RainCatcher systems to every corner of the globe. Here’s how we fund it:
Bottle rainwater everywhere and sell it to those who can afford it. This creates a revenue stream that will bring safe drinking water to those who can’t afford it. Every time someone enjoys a bottle of RainCatcher Bottled Rain they are also buying a drink for someone else. The simple act of sharing will solve the ‘World Water Shortage’.
The following proposal outlines how we do this.
RainCatcher
People in the United States drink over 8 billion gallons of bottled water each year, an amount equal to a few day’s rainfall on the side of one mountain in Hawaii.
PRESENT SYSTEM :
The current practice for servicing the $100 billion annual demand for bottled water is an environmental and economic dinosaur. Centralized bottling plants ship product over thousands of miles, across oceans and between continents. Costing more than the water itself, existing packaging and distribution technologies can, to a large extent be re-invented, replaced with something better.
PROPOSED INOVATION : RainCatcher
Catch rainwater directly from the sky with mini-rainwater collection plants along the West coast of the U.S. and throughout the islands of Hawaii, South Pacific and Indonesia. Instead of shipping drinking water from one part of the world to another, we collect, bottle and distribute drinking water within the same region it will be consumed.
BUSINESS CONCEPT :
The resource and the demand exist side by side, but have yet to be connected commercially in such an efficient, responsible and profitable way. The plan is to build the first prototype along California’s coastline, to be followed by plants all the way up to British Columbia. Next will be plants on the rainy side of each Hawaiian Island, then Tahiti and throughout the South Pacific and Indonesia. Each area will bottle and sell local rainwater using the same RainCatcher label.
MARKETING :
Global sales of bottled water = $100 billion a year.
Selling local ingenuity and products, while creating an international brand.
Promoting a new experience.
Introducing conscious consumerism.
What we are selling is water from heaven. Some ancient traditions consider rainwater to be an elixir. When people first see rainwater on the shelf next to all the others, curiosity alone will move them to try it. Novelty will launch initial sales. Then the unique taste and properties of RainCatcher, along with the environmental choice, will generate product loyalty and repeat business.
Cities are bottling and selling the same groundwater they have been pumping through pipes all these years. Coke and Pepsi realized they could generate a new revenue stream by bottling and selling the same water they’ve been adding caramel coloring to for decades. Yet all of the hundreds of brands of drinking water are essentially the same, coming from under the earth.
RainCatcher is the only one that comes directly from the sky. We are introducing an entirely new product and process, something unexpected and unprecedented.
The marketing possibilities are wide open, as you can imagine. The first company to provide rainwater on a commercial scale will have an immediate, unlimited audience.
The Product Will Sell Itself
TECHNOLOGY :
Combining existing and new, low tech, high efficiency rainwater collection technologies.
Fortunately we do not have to reinvent the wheel. Although the technology for catching and bottling rainwater already exists, no one has yet imagined and initiated this application.
Facilities will be located in areas where rainfall is plentiful and clean. Collection, bottling and distribution plants along the northwest coast will provide drinking water for the western states. The same will be duplicated for Hawaii and Tahiti. Indonesia has thousands of islands where rainwater can be bottled for China.
What the micro-brewery trend has done in the beer business, we are doing in the bottled water industry: Provide a locally generated product that is superior in terms of taste, quality and environmental impact. Instead of shipping all over the world between manufacturer and consumer, the idea is to meet local demand with local resources and ingenuity. Rainwater is a global resource that will be collected, bottled, distributed, marketed and consumed all in the same geographic region. The name RainCatcher will become synonymous with rainwater, the identical product appearing everywhere in the world without the costs and complications typically involved with international shipping, tariffs, etc.
Extensive research and applications of rainwater collection have been ongoing for decades. Our role is to introduce this information and technology commercially.
Overabundance
There is no number big enough to begin to quantify how much fresh rainwater is given to us each year. On just one mountain on the big island of Hawaii an average of 2 billion gallons of rainwater falls each day. That’s 700 billion gallons a year. This, and much more, happens all over the planet. It is an unlimited, untapped resource.
What is an overabundance called? A flood. Alongside the weekly stories about the global water shortage are images of too much water, of floods everywhere. The opportunity for RainCatcher is to become the pioneer and global leader in tapping this resource and making it available to everyone.
RainCatcher Africa — Humanitarian Fast Track
Set up rainwater collection and bottling plants all over Africa, providing both water and jobs. This can be done fast by using giant plastic tarps on hillsides to collect and channel millions of gallons of rainwater into storage tanks and bottles. Profits from the sale of bottled water go to setting up RainCatchers on every school in Africa.
Duplicate this process in India, China, South America. There isn’t a shortage of water given, just a shortage of water received. All we have to do is put a bucket under a rainstorm. It’s that simple.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT JACK ROSE: jack (at) raincatcher (dot) org
Read more: Africa, bottled water, British Columbia, California, children, China, environment, groundwater, h2o4every1, Hawaii, India, Indonesia, rain, schools, South America, South Pacific, Tahiti, technology
Starbucks is a good model for what we are attempting to do with RainCatcher – 11 stores 20 years ago – today over 16,000. Starbucks generates billions of dollars in sales by selling an ordinary product, coffee, in an extraordinary way.
We are proposing to do the same with drinking water. From Maui to Nairobi to Santa Monica people will be able to enjoy a local product. And every time they do this, someone less fortunate gets a drink as well. After people become familiar with the taste and quality and environmental positives of harvesting and using rainwater they will then be able to turn their houses into RainCatchers and, with the coming of the next rains, go from being a water consumer to a water producer. RainCatcher households will have cases of their own glass bottles to fill from a tap in their kitchen — and keep a full case in the car at all times — and the empties go through the dishwasher and get refilled.
Simply by turning the umbrella upside down we have already begun the water revolution here in California — with plans to bring bottled rainwater to every corner of the earth. Our first RainCatcher Bottling Plants are being designed right now for sites in the Santa Monica Mountains and Kenya. Already, we have people in other states around the country waiting to become franchise partners. People all around the world are waiting to work with us on this project.
Throughout Africa and India and China it’s a matter of life-and-death.
That’s why we are expanding our efforts now. When it comes to rainwater the cup is neither half empty or half full, its overflowing. With a great sense of joy we are catching and sharing this amazing abundant natural resource.
Jack Rose & Mark Armfield, 2008 — the year of gratitude.
Read more: California, China, India, Kenya, Mark Armfield, Maui, Nairobi, Santa Monica, Starbucks
Below is a RainCatcher story, Water for everyone, that appeared on globalenvision.org, an initiative of Mercy Corps.
SUCCESS STORIES
Water for everyone
Posted on Global Envision: April 03, 2007
How one individual’s simple discovery, the refreshing taste of pure rainwater, is providing solutions in the developing world.
In Africa, simple solutions are helping provide much needed water. Photo Credit: Jack Rose, Raincatcher.org
In observance of UN World Water Day on March 22, I talked with an individual who has made accessible drinking water and water conservation his life’s work. Jack Rose, the “RainCatcher” has been helping catch rainwater for use in African villages since 2004.
The rainwater experiment began in Kauai in the late 1990’s. Rose, a native of Southern California, was inspired during an El Niño winter that dumped constant rain on the island. That’s where Jack first began drinking rainwater and, a couple years later, the rainy coastline of Mendocino, California became the “laboratory, from which the RainCatcher projects in Africa were born.”
Since that fated time, Mr. Rose has made it a habit to collect and drink rainwater in his everyday life. He invokes the image of a crazed scientist, drinking from a stainless steel cup as the rain falls. He applied this passion for rainwater collection to his career, where he designs homes in Southern California. Inspired by simple, cost-effective design ideals, Jack began drafting and modeling rainwater collection tanks for home use and landscaping.
Imagine the image of a crazed scientist, drinking from a stainless steel cup as the rain falls.In 2004, Mr. Rose was invited to accompany a project called “Water for Children Africa” to Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa. He saw the dire need for drinking water across the areas he visited and found simple solutions could create extraordinary gains. He used his experience collecting rainwater at home to set up a rudimentary system in the villages that he visited using RainCatcher tents and natural drainage areas. “Maji Ni Maisha”, a Swahili expression for “Water is Life” came to encapsulate Jack’s experience in Africa and reflect the dire importance of water access in many African villages.
A Raincatcher tank being delivered to Bosiango High School. Photo Credit: Jack Rose
As the RainCatcher vision formed, Jack Rose began a partnership with Kenyan Fred Mango and a company called Kentainers, which produces water storage tanks for distribution in Africa. They are now installing their containers at schools across Kenya.
The schools provide an excellent location for the water tanks. They are generally at the center of villages and represent a source of pride for many villagers. Teachers, students and parents are the administrators of the water system once it is installed and are responsible for the security and maintenance of the container and distribution of the water. A complete system consists of a water tank, rain gutters, and a filter. Each system can be installed in one day and one truckload, carrying five tanks, can provide rain collection systems for five schools.
Jack Rose and Fred Mango, from Kentainers, Inc and director of Raincatcher Africa. Photo Credit: Jack Rose
For Jack Rose, the RainCatcher methodology is a simple solution to one of the world’s most urgent problems: “there are many problems in the world that seem unsolvable … this isn’t one of them.” The materials necessary to install five villages with rainwater collection systems cost approximately $4500, including filters. The filters used are made by the Swiss Company Katadyn and cost around $250 each. The filters are an added expense; rainwater does not require filtration, but it can filter out contaminants collected from dust or rooftop surfaces. Additionally, if filters are installed in the rainwater collection devices, the system can also provide a source of clean water during the dry season. After the collected rainfall has been consumed, water from traditional sources like nearby streams and creeks can be filtered through the tank and cleaned for human consumption.
“There are many problems in the world that seem unsolvable … this isn’t one of them.”It is the RainCatcher’s hope that the next generation across the globe will embrace the earth’s natural abundance of water and use it more efficiently to eradicate the water problems of today. The biggest obstacle to this task is awareness. The plight of over one billion people without access to clean water doesn’t receive the attention that is urgently needed to address the situation. Despite efforts by the United Nations and World Water Day activities, the frustration of unequal water distribution remains the fundamental concern for the developing world. In this struggle, Jack Rose describes himself as the world’s waiter, declaring:
“We are told that we should drink 8 glasses of water a day. Whenever you go to a restaurant, or sit down for a meal, there is a glass of water brought to the table. At humanity’s table, however, each day we are 8 billion glasses short, I am simply a waiter carrying as many glasses as I can.”
Fred Mango, Jack's African counterpart in the Raincatcher Africa Project, demonstrates how to use the filters. Photo Credit: Jack Rose, Raincatcher.org
An example of the tanks that are donated by Raincatcher Africa to each school, they can hold up to 6000 liters of rainwater for human consumption. Photo Credit: Jack Rose, Raincatcher.org
Individuals like Jack Rose are the catalysts of change. He is planning several projects which will help continue his work in Africa and raise awareness about the possibilities of rain collection in both developing and developed countries. One such project is “Water for Everyone,” a film documentary which will tell theRainCatcher story and convey the power of simple solutions globally. You can read more about RainCatcher projects at RainCatcher.org.
Contributed by Lindsay Benson, Project Intern at Global Envision. Lindsay has a MA in International Political Economy from American University and her research focus is in global food policy.
Read more: Africa, California, El Niño, Fred Mango, Globalenvision, Hawaii, Katadyn, Kauai, Kentainers, Maji Ni Maisha, Mendocino, Mercy Corps, schools, Southern California, United Nations, Water for Everyone, Water is Life, water tanks, World Water Day
Malibu Times article, Water is life — published: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 1:40 PM PST
Water is life
Jack Rose’s RainCatcher.org waters the world.
By Ben Marcus / Special to The Malibu Times
An Nov. 10 2006 L.A. Times story cites that dirty water is the second-leading cause of death among children globally.
Malibu resident Jack Rose believes the next worldwide resource battle will be about water. However, if collected properly, there is more than enough water for most of the planet.
Inspired by his travels throughout the world, and for the taste of what he calls a magic elixir, rainwater, Rose is developing systems for capturing and storing rainwater that can be used by future generations of Californians and underdeveloped villages all around the world.
Rose, 58, has been developing what he calls the RainCatcher since the late ’90s, when he was inspired to capture rainwater by trips to two of the wettest places on earth: Kauai and Mendocino.
“In the late ’90s, I arrived on Kauai in the middle of an El Niño winter,” Rose said. “In a rental car wandering around the island, my first response to warm, sparkling tropical rain was to pull the car over, grab a big stainless steel soup pot from our gear and place it on the hood. I continued to catch and drink this elixir all winter. I would stand on the balcony bug-eyed with Einstein hair, raise a glass and toast this bizarre discovery.”
In the winter of 2002, Rose was living in Mendocino, which is green and lush like Kauai.
“I rigged up rain gutters on a cabin in the redwoods and caught many gallons,” Rose said. “This is all I drank for an entire winter–not from necessity, but from curiosity, passion, glee. Aside from the pure fun of catching rain, it is the best tasting substance I’ve ever ingested. Truly a chalice full of delight. One day, while holding up a glass, I realized that over a billion people on the earth can’t enjoy this simple act. What I came to take for granted was not available to many, yet, at times, India and Africa are visited by opulent monsoons, just like Kauai and Mendocino. Right there I decided to design simple ways to catch rain everywhere.”
Knowing that up to five million people around the world die from tainted water every year, Rose became possessed with the idea of capturing and storing water from the skies.
“Like the Richard Dreyfuss character in ‘Close Encounters’ making mashed potato ‘Devil’s Tower’ sculptures,” Rose said. “I began my work.”
A self-taught engineer who worked in construction for many years, Rose found the model for his system in the Golden State.
“I grew up along the coast of California with a mountain range, the Sierra Nevada, in my back yard,” Rose said. “Every year, like clockwork, moisture floats in from the Pacific, hits the Sierra, and drops an abundance of rain and snow. The mountains store precious water in the frozen state for a few months, then release it one drop at a time all throughout the long, dry season. For those billions who are chronically thirsty, all that’s missing is a means to catch and store each season’s rainfall. With the RainCatcher project I aim to bring the mountains to the people, tilting the playing field in their favor. Every possible structure can act as a mini-mountain and catch a lot of water.”
To start his project, Rose went to where the need for water was greatest. In April of 2003, he was invited to join “Water For Children Africa” in a humanitarian journey to set up water storage tanks for schools.
“While traveling through Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa, I designed RainCatchers that people could cob together with local materials,” Rose said. “In the hill country, where every home grows their own food, I showed farmers how they could spread plastic up the hill, berm the sides to make a funnel and direct the next rainfall into storage tanks. I worked with a tent manufacturer in Nairobi to create RainCatcher tents that, instead of the middle rising to a peak, it sloped to a waiting tank in the center. Everywhere I visited in Africa I was greeted with, ‘Water is life, thank you for being here.’ Everyone wants clean water. They have the skill and the will, but lack the resources. I came back knowing that my job is to tell the RainCatcher story, to come up with ways to bring water tanks and filters that require no electricity or moving parts to remote villages and crowded townships throughout Africa.”
Closer to home, Rose is applying RainCatcher to Dolphin’s Run, a Malibu home that will get all its power and hot water from the sun, and most of its water from above.
“Malibu averages about 15 inches of rain,” Rose said. “The formula I use is the square footage of the roof area, divided by two, multiplied by annual rainfall equals the gallons you get for every inch of rain. This house has 5,000 square feet so that adds up to 2,500 gallons of storage a year for every inch of rain. That makes 30,000 gallons of water a year. This house will have a 10,000 gallon storage container buried in the backyard, and that will cover the need for landscaping.”
Rose’s next project is for a village called Bosiango in Western Kenya. The whole story began with an email plea from a David N. Ogachi, who told Rose of the water-borne diseases that his community, especially the women and children, were suffering from, to help install safe and clean piped water.
That began a long back and forth with Rose by e-mail, which can be read on the www.raincatcher.org Web site. Rose is hoping to bring a truckload of six RainCatcher tanks to the village, which will allow them to capture and store 8,000 gallons of water.
“Right now they are getting their water from contaminated streams,” Rose said.
Rose is putting his Miata car up for auction to raise funds for the trip as a part of the effort to install rain-catching systems in places where it’s a matter of life and death.
“This is the real ‘Survivor’,” Rose said. “So I’m thinking about the ‘Global Garage Sale’ where people here offer some of the extra stuff laying around America to be transformed into water storage tanks for Africa. A jet ski here, piano there, etc. How many boats are sitting unsailed in America’s marinas? There’s probably enough stuff here to provide clean drinking water for the entire world. The exchange rate is very good, the reward is great. I’m offering my Miata as the first example of this concept.”
More information about the RainCatcher project can be obtained by visiting the Web site, www.raincatcher.org.
Los Angeles Times article: A global clean-water shortage, November 10, 2006.
Read more: Africa, Bosiango, California, David Nyabuto Ogachi, El Niño, filters, Global Garage Sale, Hawaii, Kauai, Kenya, Malibu, Mendocino, Nairobi, South Africa, Tanzania, Water For Children Africa, Water is Life, water tanks
Observations from my rain catching trip to Kenya
I know all too well there is no way to be here without being permanently changed. Such is my bond with Africa.
I give myself completely — blending with this place, these people, inventing a tomorrow where everyone has clean water to drink, everyday, just like we have at home.
I don’t think it’s too much to ask for — and so I ask and will ask, over and over and over again, until it is done.
If NASA can ask for billions of dollars to search for water on Mars, then we can ask the same for water here on Earth.
If the DEPARTMENT OF WAR can ask for 20 million dollars for one tank, then we can ask the same for 40 thousand water tanks. (1 army tank = 40 thousand water tanks, the equation of common sense)
Resources allocated for water exploration in space, redirected back to Earth, would provide clean, safe drinking water for everyone, almost overnight.
This isn’t philosophy or politics, it’s hardware: tanks, gutters, filters — distributed through the many non-profits already in the field, doing good work, bringing as much water as they can.
It’s just a matter of hardware. We have the resources, why aren’t we sharing all this? There’s far more than we could ever use.
Soon, the RainCatcher documentary will tell the story of ‘Water for Everyone’, featuring the historical, geopolitical, natural resource and humanitarian expressions of the relentless quest for water – Bringing to the big screen for the first time images of people all over the world catching and using rainwater.
Simple solutions for everyday problems will be be discovered and revealed and woven through the story.
Dramatic threads will include water wars and water woes, and amazing displays of nature’s abundance.
Example: One day’s rainfall on one mountain in Hawaii is equal to the amount of bottled water Americans consume in one year.
There are many such spigots all around the Earth. The RainCatcher documentary will put a bucket under each one and tally the catch, showing how supply far exceeds demand.
The film will clearly show there is no shortage of water given, just a shortage of water received. The gift has been offered, but we are required to meet it half way, we must put a bucket under the rain storm.
A billion buckets, actually. The film will spotlight all the clever ways people are already doing this around the world, including interviews with the inventors who dream up unusual ways to catch rain, store it, clean it and bottle it.
And the film will also show designs of the future, where every golf course is a RainCatcher, every shopping center parking lot, the rooftops of giant commercial and industrial buildings, and every new house is built with a ten thousand gallon water storage tank buried under the back lawn. (I’m creating the model for this in Malibu, near the High School)
There are villages in India with laws requiring homeowners to catch and collect all the rainwater that falls on their roofs. California will have the same law 20 years from now.
We’re not talking rocket science here. Just tanks, gutters & filters. That’s all it takes. That’s all I’m asking for.
There will be a day when clean, safe water is available for everyone. I have seen it. This movie points to that day with passion, grace and hope.
The problem is clear: 5 million die each year from exposure to contaminated water. Billions lack consistent access to clean water. Fortunately this is a solvable problem, a matter of hardware. My wish list has only three items on it: tanks, gutters and filters.
‘Water for Everyone’, the RainCatcher documentary tells the story of many people in many places already catching as much rain as they can, but needing more hardware.
Who among you can help me make this movie, tell this story and get this hardware to everyone who needs it?
Read more: Africa, California, filters, gutters, Hawaii, India, Kenya, NASA, water tanks
RainCatcher — Kenya: Harvesting natural rainwater to quench the world’s thirst.
Subject: Help us Have Clean and Safe Water
Moses Nyagaka Okioga, Fred Mango, and David Nyabuto Ogachi in Kenya
On Nov 11, 2006, at 12:15 AM, David Nyabuto Ogachi wrote:
Dear sir/madam,
My community in Bosiango is suffering. Many people in this community suffer from water borne diseases, particularly women and children. After carrying the needs assessment I came up with the idea of starting a project of piped , clean, and safe water. Please could you assist?
Yours Sincerely,
David N Ogachi.
Hi David,
Where is Bosiango? Are you near Nairobi? I helped install rainwater water storage tanks at some of the primary schools in the Mua hills. The tanks were from Kentainers in Nairobi. Do you have buildings that would be suitable for catching rain?
My site is raincatcher.org
yours in friendship,
Jack Rose
On Nov 17, 2006, at 2:33 AM, David Nyabuto Ogachi wrote:
Dear sir,
I do not live near Nairobi, I live in Western Kenya, right on the floor of the Great Rift Valley where water is like gold — the driest area. I became interested in this issue of water because of the situation in which my community finds itself. Rivers in this area are seasonal, full during the rainy season, only to go dry as the rains recede (like the present condition in East Africa today). Every one is affected yes, but women and children are worst hit. Children who go to school do so without doing proper washing — you know the consequence of this. The less water which is available is brown with mud and dirt, therefore quite unsafe for both drink and general use. PLEASE HELP. Yes we have houses that have roofs capable of harvesting a large volume of water yet the people lack the financial capacity to purchase the tanks. We need tanks in schools that number almost 10 and other social gathering points.
Hi David,
We can get tanks from Kampala or Arusha. Which city are you closest too? I’ve included some maps. Can you show your location? You can also email photos if you have a digital camera. I have a filter that you can put the dirtiest river water through and get clean drinking water. It’s called a slow-sand filter and you can read about it by going to raincatcher.org and reading the RainCatcher Peru article. There you can click on the link for Blue Future Filters – bluefuturefilters.com – and find out about this amazing system. It is the highest rated by the UN and W.H.O. Also a good filter can be found at Katadyn.com
Two sources of water — the rain and the river. With tanks set up on school buildings, we collect and store fresh water when it rains. When the supply runs out over long periods of no rain, you can put river water through the filter and get clean water to drink. I can work on fund raising here if you can organize people on your end to help set these up. Is there an NGO established in or around your area that we can work with? Let me know. The goal will be to have systems in place before the arrival of the next rainy season. Can you tell me when the next rainy season begins?
Yours in friendship,
Jack Rose
Dear sir,
Thank you so much for your e-mail.
I live in the southern part of province 6 at the border with province 4 I think the closest city might be Kampala. Electricity is so bad today – it is on and off – my cyber cafes are almost off. Please reply soon.
Yours in friendship,
David N.Ogachi
Dear Sir,
Because of power problems I was forgetting another important thing. As a matter of fact I already have people on the ground who are working to install water system in the schools and social gathering centers I mentioned, however the cost of doing this is skyrocketing. We have an NGO in our area called Dano agency which I think would help. The next rain season is just beginning. I hope to hear from you soon.
Yours in friendship,
David N.Ogachi.
Hi David,
Can you please give me an email contact with someone from Dano?
Or have them contact me. Any photos will be helpful,
Yours in friendship,
Jack Rose
Email to Kentainers in Nairobi
Water Storage Tanks – fredmango@kentainers.com
KENYA
Kentainers Limited
Embakasi Road, Off Airport North Road
P.O Box 42168,GPO Nairobi, Kenya.
Tel: (254)-(20) 823513-5,823442-4
(Hotline) (254)-(20)-6750993,6750984
Fax: 823927,331502
Hi All,
A couple years ago I helped install water storage tanks at schools in the Mua Hills above Nairobi. I worked with a group from California called ‘Water For Children – Africa’. The tanks were supplied by Kentainers. See photos. I am contacting your company now in regards to an upcoming project in Bosiango. Below is the email correspondence that describes what David and I are attempting to do. Can you give me prices for water storage tanks delivered to Bosiango? How long a drive is it from Nairobi to Bosiango? Would it be better to ship from Crestanks in Kampala? I plan to work with an NGO in your region. Do you have a recommendation? Any information and images will be helpful,
Thanks,
Jack Rose
On Nov 20, 2006, at 9:32 AM, fredmango@kentainers.com wrote:
You will be responded to within 12hours . Thank you once again for your Interest and Concern about our products and services. Regards, System Administrator
Hi Fred,
Here’s a copy of the latest email exchange with Moses & David in Bosiango.
Thanks,
Jack
On Nov 21, 2006, at 4:43 AM, Moses Nyagaka wrote:
Dear sir, I am MOSES NYAGAKA OKIOGA , I am a writer. Some of my works are on sale through Amazon.com – just log to site and ask for RELEGATED TO THE WILD. I am 46 years old Kenyan, a father of three. What i am proud of is that I am a friend to people. I am always eager to help — I am told JACK ROSE has got the same trait in his personality…We have an NGO here, D.A.N.O Agencies, which helps people who have WATER problem. David N.Ogachi told me to contact you. At the moment we are making an effort to assist people, few of them to put up containers to catch the on going rain — but we lack funds. Regrettably we have never thought wise to photograph whatever we are doing, sorry, therefore we will dispatch someone to Nairobi to buy a digital camera. No one is selling the thing here. Thank you for offering the containers they will make a big difference. To assist install some of these tanks we have here I humbly request you to send some funds (if they are available) so that these friends of ours would benefit. Should you find yourself in a position of doing it Please use either MONEYGRAM or WESTERN MONEY Transfer cashed in KISII KENYA
Yours sincerely, Moses Nyagaka Okioga.
Hi Moses,
Thanks for writing. I have an email into Kentainers. When I hear back I will get a contact person for you to meet with when you go to Nairobi. You can pick out the water tanks that are right for your use. Have pictures taken of you with the tanks and have Kentainers email them to me. Also I need images of you and David and others with the houses, schools and other buildings that will be getting tanks. You need to take some measurements and let me know how many rain gutters you will need. I will have Kentainers deliver the gutters with the tanks and put the name RainCatcher on all the tanks. After they are set up I will need you to email photos of you and friends standing with the new water tanks. Then I will come to take more pictures and to visit other sites that need RainCatchers. The idea is to use each project to help create the next project, causing a chain-reaction until everyone has clean water to drink. This, of course could never happen without responsible people doing all the ground work on your end.
Thank you for helping. If you get to Kentainers soon, ask for Fred Mango. He is the one who emailed me. You will need to tell him exactly how many tanks and gutters you need so he can set up a business structure with me to get this all going. We will all work together to bring clean water to your families. The rain is freely given in such abundance. All we have to do is receive it. I look forward to doing that with you and David and your whole community.
I am a writer, too. When I come to Kenya we can trade stories.
Until then we will catch rain.
Yours in friendship.
Jack Rose
Hi Fred,
Below is a copy of an email from Moses and my reply
On Nov 22, 2006, at 2:36 AM, Moses Nyagaka wrote:
Hi, jack,
Thank you for writing. We would like to travel to Nairobi on Friday, please get the contact whom we are going to meet. I have made the measurements of the rain gutters and I have come up with the following: 10 schools – 2,400ft; 2 churches – 360ft; 8 families – 480 feet. You may be aware (because you have been to Kenya) that the type of soil we have here is hostile to plastics. Therefore the concrete base could be needed. My organization has run out of funds. It is good to have our pictures but due the fact that we do not have a digital camera we will send them once we buy it from Nairobi. Yes I am responsible, in fact I must be, because of the past experiences.
Yours in friendship,
Moses Nyagaka Okioga.
Hi Moses & David,
Below is the Kentainers contact:
I will pass on the gutter info to Fred and ask him to take pictures of all three of you in front of the tanks you pick out. He can email them to me. I need these for storytelling here. I plan to raise funds in January and come to Kenya in February.
I am a rain catcher. I will tell your story and have people purchase water storage tanks directly from Kentainers for your community. After we have successfully completed your project we will use it as a model for how people can work to catch clean water for drinking, one village at a time. We will want to start a chain reaction. If, starting in January, we could help to create one water project per month — that would be my goal. I think we can do it.
Another way to build a foundation for the water tanks is leveling the ground, placing an iron ring on the level spot and filling the ring with sand. I will ask Fred Mango if his company can supply one ring per tank. The idea is for everything needed (foundation ring, gutters & tank to be delivered at the same time. Set-up in one day. Then we dance when the rains come.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Jack Rose
Read more: Africa, Arusha, Blue Future Filters, Bosiango, California, Crestanks, Dano, David Nyabuto Ogachi, filters, Fred Mango, Great Rift Valley, gutters, Kampala, Katadyn, Kentainers, Kenya, Moses Nyagaka Okioga, Mua Hills, Nairobi, NGO, schools, United Nations, Water For Children Africa, water tanks, World Health Organization
Here are some water tanks for sale I came across recently in California:
Water tanks, California.
You can order these tanks from a menu à la carte.
Green pioneers
Noe Valley spec house touts conservation, including rain catchment system
Susan Fornoff, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Even before its buyers move in, a new Noe Valley home touted by its builders as “the greenest house in San Francisco” is bringing down some walls — in San Francisco’s Department of Building Inspection, that is.
The 2,600-square-foot house on Clipper Street showcases every high-end Earth-friendly feature that Lorax Development partners Mike Kerwin, Joel Micucci and Pat Loughran could find a way to incorporate, including the city’s first approved rooftop rain catchment system.
The system, by Mount Shasta’s Wonderwater Inc., collects an average of 18,000 to 20,000 gallons of annual rainfall, cleans it and stores it in tanks below the house to be used to flush toilets, wash clothes and water gardens.
Wonderwater president and founder Dylan Coleman notes that his rain harvesting systems perfect a practice that is 3,000 years old, but, he said, “There hasn’t exactly been a flood of activity,” in part because city permit boards don’t know what to make of it.
On a rainy day in San Francisco, he said, 465 million gallons of rain goes into city sewers, to be treated as sewage — a practice Coleman says is “stupid, and it’s a waste of energy.”
“I see a day in San Francisco when you can’t get a permit unless you collect a certain amount of water, and when you are charged for excess runoff,” Coleman said. “But right now there’s some real political stuff out there, and it might just go case by case until we get things going.”
Visit SF Gate to read the complete article.
Read more: California, Mount Shasta, San Francisco, water tanks, Wonderwater
Water for California
I have a solution to California’s, and the world’s, water woes. It’s called the RainCatcher.
In California, and throughout the Western U.S., the demand for water is rapidly outpacing supply. Current and future water needs for home and business owners, as well as for agriculture and industry, is so great that state government is desperately searching for new sources to tap, including adding six feet to the height of Shasta Dam. Massive, centralized infrastructure projects, paid for by increasing taxes and water bills, will not come close to meeting the relentless thirst of an ever expanding population. It is clear that for the next many decades, water will be the defining issue for California and the neighboring western states. What if every house in California caught and stored 10,000 gallons of water each season? That would add up to billions of gallons that wouldn’t have to be imported and purchased.
The California RainCatcher project will demonstrate how easy it is for homes; commercial and industrial buildings; municipal and public structures (office buildings, parking structures, etc) to be converted into rainwater collection centers. In this way each new and existing building can become a valuable source of water for landscaping. This would save billions of gallons each year. The water is free. Catching rain is easy. And plants love it, finding it preferable to chlorinated municipal water. Woodie Guthrie sang, “California is the Garden of Eden”. RainCatcher aims to nourish that garden by developing a new relationship with an old resource: rain. As with the installations we are doing in Africa, once a RainCatcher is in place, when the rains come no one is complaining, everyone is grateful. One at a time, as people get the concept of catching and using rainwater, the first question posed is, “I wonder why we waited so long to do this?” The wait is over, Raincatcher is here.
Where To Start
I am producing the first RainCatcher prototype for use along the coast of Northern California. My rainwater harvesting system will benefit both Californians and people in developing nations. Here’s how people in America can help their counterparts in Africa: Convert your house, garage or new building into a RainCatcher structure and 10% of the cost will go into the World RainCatcher Capital Pool. For every $1,000 spent on collecting rain here, $100 will go to setting up RainCatchers in Africa, where millions of people lack a consistent, clean source of water for drinking and irrigation. Each RainCatcher in America can help create a beneficiary RainCatcher house, school or medical clinic in Africa. This abundant resource will not only be enjoyed by millions here, but also shared with millions in developing countries. We have the capability of providing ample clean water for our own families and for others worldwide.
Manufacturers in Nairobi are making the tents and tanks needed for catching and storing rainwater for drinking and irrigation: Kentainers makes water storage tanks; Tarpo makes the RainCatcher tents.
Let it rain!
Read more: Africa, agriculture, business, California, future, government, industry, infrastructure, irrigation, Kentainers, landscaping, Nairobi, Shasta Dam, Tarpo, tents, United States, water tanks
