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The September Digest
Let Your Driveway Breathe: A Guide to Eco-Friendly Home Design
Volume 106 | September 2023 | By Meghan Boyle
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Check out our upcoming October events - Get a head start on signing up! | |
BRIONES RESERVOIR AND DAM BIRDING BIOBLITZ (with EBMUD) | |
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When: October 7th 2023
Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Where: Old San Pablo North Trail, 7301 San Pablo Dam Road, El Sobrante, CA, 94803
Join Wholly H2O and EBMUD for a fascinating exploration of the San Pablo Dam! We'll be documenting local flora and fauna and observing the wildlife of the San Pablo Dam and its surrounding areas. You can check out iNaturalist to see what other cool species have already been documented by our amazing community. Bring your smartphone, camera, sunblock, water, snacks and get ready for an exciting morning!
A BioBlitz is an event that focuses on finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time. It is a great way to connect with both community members and the natural environment.
This event is brought to you by Wholly H20 and East Bay Municipal Utility district, who are celebrating their 100 year anniversary! Check our their celebratory page regarding their history providing water from the Mokelumne River for the last 100 years.
To sign up for this event, use this link or the "register" button above.
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MOTH AND GALL NIGHT WALK (WITH EXPERT DAMON TIGUE) | |
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When: October 13th 2023
Time: 7:00 PM - 9:30 PM
Where: West Circle, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California, 94720
What better way to spend Friday the 13th than with Wholly H2O and expert naturalist Damon Tigue searching and investigating moths and galls? On this fun evening adventure, we'll scan oak leaves for galls and attract moths with a UV light set-up. Along the way, Damon will be there to educate and inform with his wealth of knowledge.
Bring your camera (phone or otherwise), a headlamp, warm layers, and download iNaturalist app onto your phone so we can document our findings and add to the current biological record for Strawberry Creek Watershed.
See you at the circle on campus!
Be sure to check out the iNaturalist pages for Moth and Gall Night 2022 and Moth and Gall Night 2019 at Point Molate.
If you are in need of free tickets, contact: info@whollyh2o.org
To sign up for this event, use this link or the "register" button above.
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WALKING WATERHOODS TOUR - FROG PARK | |
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When: October 21st 2023
Time: 11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Where: Frog Park Front Entrance, 481 Hardy Street, Oakland, CA, 94618
Explore the gems of Frog Park (located in North Oakland's Rockridge neighborhood) with Wholly H2O! Join us as we dive into the art of the community, such as the Oceanus Mural and Frog Park Entrance Mural, explore various discovery scopes, and learn about the flora and fauna of the park.
Check out PocketSights to see what other awesome features we will be learning about during our in-person tour!
If you are in need of free tickets, contact: info@whollyh2o.org
To sign up for this event, use this link or the "register" button above.
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Let Your Driveway Breathe! | |
Tips on creating a more eco-friendly home | |
Happy September from Wholly H2O! With the post-summer heat hitting and autumn on the horizon, we’re back from our brief August hiatus — just in time to discuss the importance of eco-friendly home design before we transition into a *hopefully* water-filled fall. | |
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Wholly H2O has been a long-time champion of water conservation and rainwater capture, and while we continue to push for more of it, those aren’t the only ways to create a more environmentally-friendly household. Hence the title of this month’s newsletter, we present to you a lesser-known, but equally eco-conscious option: permeable pavement.
Go anywhere — any home, any mall, any city — and there’s a high chance you’ll run into some sort of pavement. It’s ubiquitous in our everyday lives, but its negative environmental impact isn’t so widely known. Not including the huge carbon footprint following traditional concrete and asphalt production, both of these materials are generally quite impervious, which poses a major threat to the health of natural environments, waterways, and infrastructure.
What exactly makes it such a problem?
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Most of the issues with traditional pavement lie in the fact that it gives water no place to go. Before we had widespread roadways, driveways, sidewalks, etc., excess water was able to soak back into the earth through absorptive soil and plants, or run into available bodies of water where natural floodplains were available to take care of the occasional inundation.
The introduction of modern concrete and asphalt bulldozed over both of those options, literally. Simply put: synthetic surfaces have ruined nature’s flow.
The thing is, waterways still run like veins throughout the Bay Area, snaking between towns, with many ending up in the San Francisco Bay itself. But the floodplains and extra soil are largely gone, replaced with impermeable surfaces that encourage chemical buildup and flooding.
As we’ve discussed in previous newsletters, when rain falls and turns into stormwater upon hitting human-made objects, it takes with it all of the dangerous pollutants that sit atop paved surfaces, and deluges sewers and storm drains. Or worse, during heavy storms, it just sits there — sometimes for days on end — damaging our infrastructure.
This can lead to water buildup in pipes, flash-flooding (which ruins homes and buildings), and the poisoning of creeks and local aquatic life.
This is where our suggestion comes in.
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Permeable pavement, as the name suggests, is pervious asphalt, concrete, or aggregate that can be used as a green alternative to traditional, impermeable pavements. It allows water, typically stormwater, to percolate through its porous surfaces to reach the ground underneath.
Permeable design was a breakthrough in green infrastructure and has been gaining traction as a popular substitute for regular concrete and asphalt. While it’s harder to implement permeable design throughout large cities and or have it replace entire roadways, you can take a step towards reducing the effects of water runoff in your home by using permeable pavement in your driveway, patio, or even swimming pool deck.
The most common application of permeable pavement in home design is the installation of permeable pavers. These are interlocking blocks of permeable concrete or aggregate that mimic the earth’s natural filtration process by temporarily holding and eventually clarifying the water that passes through them. Permeable pavers help reduce water runoff, filter pollutants, and mitigate erosion as a result of heavy water flow. While they do tend to run on the more expensive side compared to traditional pavers, their versatility and numerous environmental benefits make them worthwhile.
Another way permeable design can be applied in a home is by using porous asphalt or concrete in a driveway or other paved surface. Similar to permeable pavers, porous asphalt and concrete allow water to filter through the surface, preventing excess runoff.
You can learn more about how porous pavement works and how it is installed from Bay Area Pervious Concrete’s guide or this article from Concrete Network. The EPA also has a great article all about permeable design in general here.
If you have the means, we encourage you to let your driveway (and other available surfaces) breathe!
Of course, this is just one of many methods that can be used to create a more environmentally-friendly home. Some other effective and lower-cost measures include adopting water-conscious practices (using less water, installing graywater systems, etc.), setting up rainwater cisterns, and planting native gardens and/or rain gardens. Rainwater collection and rain garden methods are detailed in our January 2023 newsletter if you’re interested in revisiting our brief guide.
We also invite you to consider starting a native garden, a beautiful addition to any eco-conscious home. Native gardens are simply gardens that use plants endemic to the area you live in. Feel free to browse through this short list of some native Bay Area plants for a few ideas.
Plus, you can always check out Wholly H2O’s very own Walking Waterhoods tours for a more in-depth look at native species throughout the Bay! In these tours, specifically the Temescal, 51st Street and Telegraph, and Lake Temescal tours, we also discuss the impacts of stormwater pollution for those who are interested.
Ultimately, creating an eco-friendly home is about both your mindset and your behavior. By educating yourself on the water around you and on ways to conserve, and by acting on this information through installing systems that work for you, you're already making big waves toward a better, water-forward future.
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Our lives depend on healthy watersheds, and Wholly H2O depends on YOU! | |
Our important (and fun) work takes cash, plain and simple. Will you help us keep our events and yours coming? Please use the link below to flow some cash in our direction! | |
What else are we up to? Wholly H2O regularly plans exciting environmental events throughout the year, including beach cleanups, walking tours, art projects, and nature observations (aka BioBlitzes). To view our future events, click the link here, or use the button below. If you'd like to stay tuned and get notifications about our events, feel free to use that same link to follow us on EventBrite!
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Want to Give Back to Your Watershed? Join our Board of Advisors! | |
During the last 100 years, California has been in on-and off drought conditions. We also have one of the five most important delta systems in the world, yet, most Californians do not know where their water comes from, how much they use a day, or what watershed they live in. At Wholly H2O, we are creating deep connections with watershed ecosystems in order to inspire people to take long-range personal and political action, while still having fun. And our Board of Advisors is a crucial part of how Wholly H2O functions. We ask for a solid commitment to:
- Join a 1.5 hour board meeting every four months.
- Put the word out about at least 3 Wholly H2O events a year
- Attend at least 3 Wholly H2O events per year
- Assist us in making connections for program content, partners, funding, and growth.
We're looking for experts in Bay Area creek and marine ecosystems, East Bay BIPOC history, citizen science, curriculum development, East Bay K-12 schools, art, marketing, or outreach. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in, apply using this link. Also, be sure to check out our current Board of Advisors to learn more about our current members!
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Wholly H2O couldn't run without the work of our talented volunteers. We have a bunch of unique opportunities throughout the year, such as podcast producing, accounting, and content editing! Take a look at our Volunteer Match to learn more!
We are especially interested in these two roles:
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Our Interns Do Really Cool Stuff. | | |
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We always have a pod of 10-15 interns researching creek histories, creating wildlife guides, editing livestreams, writing copies for our watershed tours, and more. We promise you will never be bored - lend your skills or add your curiosity to our work!
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Wholly H2O catalyzes dynamic, informed connections between people and their watersheds that yield proactive and appropriate water management through conservation and reuse. Our watershed-positive educational programs engage Californians in community , citizen science, art, and green infrastructure education.
Our activities: waterhood tours, BioBlitzes, Moth nights, and art events are bringing waterhoods to life for hundreds of water-users around the San Francisco Bay area! Join us for an event, follow us on social media, volunteer or intern, or donate to support our fun and innovative work. (We also love matched donations from your workplace!)
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