Beef Bioswales and Other Aquatic Anomalies

How the Atmospheric River taught me to see the light in regenerative agriculture.

It seemed ironic that the fourth post in my series on Dispelling the Myths About Beef would be about water. California is in the middle of another Atmospheric River that has dropped more than eight inches of rain on my backyard over the last three days.  We Californians aren’t used to rain. Certainly not eight inches. So I’ve been hiding in my house all week. Understandably, I started to get a little antsy. I needed to go on a little rainy day field trip. And it just so happens that only ten minutes from my home, there is a peculiar little building that I’ve always wanted to visit in the rain. It’s called the Chino Basin Water Conservation District Waterwise Community Center. 

It’s an impressive, modern structure full of sharp angles, earth tones, and glass. The facility’s goal is to “inspire water-wise practices at home and in the community.” This includes exhibits, gardens, school programs, and a friendly tortoise who happened to be hibernating when I stopped by. The place must be a hit with kids because a school bus full of elementary students had braved the atmospheric river just as I pulled up. 

This bus dropped off a load of elementary kids who brazenly risked their lives in the Atmospheric River to learn more about conserving water.

I had decided to come to visit the Waterwise Community Center–WCC for short–because the place puts on quite the show during these rare rainy California days. Known for its innovative rain harvesting design, the WCC’s roof and gutters are intentionally positioned to capture every ounce of water that falls on its footprint. With architecturally embellished channels, funnels and pipes, the runoff is directed into planters and bioswales at the building’s base, populated with native plants, drought resistant grasses, and attractive stones. This purposeful landscape slows, filters, and percolates the water back into the soil. Mimicking the natural processes of a stream bed, the swale passively cleanses the water of debris, pollutants, and toxins, preparing it to recharge the underlying water table. The only energy involved in the entire process comes kinetically from the natural flow of water downhill. 

Tragically, this facility is an anomaly in Southern California. Just fifty feet from the WCC’s front door, there is a massive reminder of how much of the Southland deals with rain water. A 30 foot wide concrete trough, the San Antonio Creek Channel, is a churning and frothing cataract of storm drain effluence. Food wrappers, plastic bags and bottles–suburban flotsam and jetsam–hurl by at a dangerous clip. My stomach turned as I remembered this viaduct was rushing toward the Pacific Ocean where it would spill its bilge at a rate of 16,000 cubic feet of water per second, or 12 olympic sized swimming pools every minute. 

So what does all this have to do with cows? 

Don’t worry, I’m getting there.

Myth #4: Beef uses more water than any other agricultural commodity.