The Camp Verde Town Council unanimously voted to give $10,000 in community outreach funds to the Tree Advisory Committee’s rainwater harvesting project during its Jan. 3 meeting.
The Tree Advisory Committee is a volunteer run group that was created by a town ordinance to maintain Camp Verde’s Tree City USA status. This status is awarded by the Arbor Day Foundation as part of a program to maintain and grow tree cover in urban environments.
Since the group was founded 10 years ago, its members have planted over 500 trees and shrubs on town property and given away hundreds of seedlings to community members.
Committee chairwoman Diane Scantlebury said that the committee had previously looked at putting trees along the northeast fenceline of the town’s soccer field behind the ramada, and given the proximity to the gym and ramada, they thought that rainwater harvesting could be used to water those trees.
The committee met with Isaac Dudley, flow manager at Friends of the Verde River, to help them with the calculations. Scantlebury said that with the typical 14 inches of rainfall that Camp Verde gets annually, the roofs of the two buildings would be able to provide up to 38,000 gallons of water annually.
The TAC is looking to purchase a 10,000-gallon water tank similar to the rainwater harvesting tank behind the Camp Verde Community Library. The committee plans to install the tank and piping this winter and early spring, collect water throughout the summer and then plant trees in the fall in the downtown area.
“For people who love to plant trees, rainwater harvesting is becoming a real necessity in our area,” Scantlebury said. She added that other benefits of rainwater harvesting include combating prolonged drought in the area, preventing low river and well levels and educating the community about drought prevention. The TAC has taught community classes before and could potentially teach a class for residents on how to install rainwater harvesting systems of their own.
“I’m really excited about this,” Councilwoman Robin Godwin said. “Let’s use the water that’s coming down to us.”
