Mulch For The People
Urban Acupuncture? What’s that? It’s the brainchild of Melanie Winter, founder of Water LA, a collective of non-profits, local government agencies, small businesses, and people like us working for resilience. Like medical acupuncture needles, lots of small-scale, localized, and less costly projects, rather than capital-intensive municipal programs, are an effective way for cities to become climate and water resilient; urban acupuncture revitalizes the whole by addressing the parts.
Water LA encourages residents to grade their yards to catch water, and to cut into curbs to redirect storm water from gutters to flow into their parking strips, where it can soak down to replenish groundwater; of course mulch is included to slow evaporation. Greywater systems, rain barrels, edible gardens and infiltration trenches across concrete driveways are other ways to capture, conserve and reuse water. And with over 60% of the urban area occupied by residential property, engaging and empowering residents to create thousands of small-scale changes can unite communities.
Sylvia Holmes and Lin Griffith of Mulch for the People visited Melanie Winter recently to learn how people in Pasadena could start an Urban Acupuncture program. They were delighted to learn that we don’t have to: the program that Water LA is planning with both the City and County of Los Angeles will be available to all cities in LA County.
Mulch for the People is ready to sign on! Will you?
— Lin Griffith
Water LA encourages residents to grade their yards to catch water, and to cut into curbs to redirect storm water from gutters to flow into their parking strips, where it can soak down to replenish groundwater; of course mulch is included to slow evaporation. Greywater systems, rain barrels, edible gardens and infiltration trenches across concrete driveways are other ways to capture, conserve and reuse water. And with over 60% of the urban area occupied by residential property, engaging and empowering residents to create thousands of small-scale changes can unite communities.
Sylvia Holmes and Lin Griffith of Mulch for the People visited Melanie Winter recently to learn how people in Pasadena could start an Urban Acupuncture program. They were delighted to learn that we don’t have to: the program that Water LA is planning with both the City and County of Los Angeles will be available to all cities in LA County.
Mulch for the People is ready to sign on! Will you?
— Lin Griffith
