Water has never been the focus of this column, but because of our weather this season, I am now glad to make it so. The snow and rain, and the Highway 74 washout, are reminders of how powerful moving water can be. They also bring to mind how important it is to control runoff. As we are well aware, this mountain needs all the water it can store. We need it for our household use, and we need it for the health of our trees and plants. Deprive trees of water, as in the past drought, and they are unable to fight off disease and insects, and once dead become a fire hazard.

One thing we can do as property owners is to capture as much water as we can on our property, holding it for the vegetation, and preventing runoff from taking away soil. Doris Lombard, one of our board directors, has been pointing out the benefits of water capture for years. Properties can be altered to make them act like sponges, soaking up precious water from rain and snow melt and slowly giving it back to trees and plants over our long dry season.

How to do this is laid out in "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands", by Brad Lancaster, an excellent book that Doris has both used and recommended. Mr. Lancaster has studied water harvesting techniques from drylands all over the world, and he describes many inexpensive methods that emphasize earthworks as a way to slow down and capture rainwater.

The trick is to understand how your property sheds water, then to think about ways to slow it down so that it can be absorbed by the soil. Standing outside in the rain is a good, albeit uncomfortable, way to do this. But after a rain or a melt you can almost always tell by soil and debris where the water was flowing and how fast.

Lancaster describes many techniques for water capture, but I will just name three that are simple. One is a "berm and basin", where you dig out a shallow basin on a slope and create a small wall of soil on the down side, creating a berm around the depression, trapping water as it flows downhill.

Another technique is terracing, which is creating a flat surface across the slope. This flat area can be used as a walkway or plant space. Steep slopes require retaining walls; gentler slopes can take small rock walls or even raised earth.

Last is what's called a French drain. This is a trench or basin filled with rock or gravel. As the water is directed into the basin, it infiltrates quickly into the root zone of surrounding trees and shrubs. It is excellent for silt-free runoff, such as water from a roof downspout.