Tarp in Pond Basin Desert Rainwater Harvesting Systems

While I save up funding for bentonite clay to seal my desert ponds, it’s essential to my survival and that of my dryland and aquaculuture plantings that I catch every drop of rain I possibly can. In addition to my tiny home’s corrugated metal roof rainwater catchment system, I’ve decided to break one of my preferences to avoid all plastic products, and made the compromise to buy 20x20 foot tarps. They are perfect for catching rainwater during a storm, but due to the damage caused by UV rays from the sun, they have to be folded up and stored in the shade between storms.

This makes for an epic sport, I call “Flood Sport” of getting them deployed into position without getting struck by lightning, frozen to death by cold rain, or pelted by hail. Depending on the season it can be more or less dangerous to run out and unfold these tarps in powerful winds. The tarps tend to almost fly away and I can barely hold on. I try to surf the wind waves and get them to unfold precisely as I need them too, sometimes I’m lucky sometimes not.

I buried wooden anchors deep in the sand with metal wire attached at the top which connect to paracord lengths that terminate with a tied on carabiner. This allows me to clip down the tarp eye holes quickly and have almost total assurance that all but the strongest winds won’t damage the tarp or flip the water out of it as it collects.

By now it’s been probably more than 10 or 15 times they were deployed, did their job, and were packed up. They’ve held up well, and whereas I thought I’d be no better off folding them up and putting them away than by leaving them out in the sun, as I figured the repeated folding would wear holes through them, so far they’ve done fine.

They’re normal lifespan varies based on the climate, and how much exposure to wind and sun they get. I’m hoping they’ll last several years, or at least until I can finally replace them permanently by lining the ponds with bentonite for a natural seal.

I’ve experiment with several methods of harvesting the collected rainwater, hoping the efficiency metrics would work out so that I’d be able use solar panels to run a bilge pump that would allow me to effortlessly harvest the water from the lowest pit of the catchment basin. While it worked at first, I soon realized, it was loud, wasn’t all that efficient, and if there were still clouds after the rain, that made the solar power potential very limited.

I ended up falling back on drum pumps, extending them with extra hose and clamps, and just manually pumping the water out through what looks like a large syringe. I often think of the tragic irony it is that so many people are jabbing veins with hard drugs to escape traumatic, painful, and sometimes meaningless lives. Whereas, here I am using a similar technology at a different scale to sustain a lifestyle full of meaning, health, wellness, and moderation of mind altering substances. It gives me hope that going back to the land can be a way for people to find new meaning. I know for me, when the arts and sciences of survival become all consuming as they are here, even though there’s a lot of down time between chores and projects, life is so invigorating and thrilling, I can’t imagine being trapped in the madness of a city with no connection to nature and gnawing sense of a lack of purpose.