Caught in the grip of a four-year drought which blankets the entire north Texas region and beyond, the current water crisis is rated severe to exceptional. Without enough water, Texas and its residents face a bleak future agriculturally, economically and ecologically. Even with a few recent soaking rains, area residents, businesses and cities are facing the fact that water is a scarce and precious resource.

How can individuals fight a drought when they face extreme temperatures, water restrictions, empty lakes and brown grass everywhere they look? The idea of using active water harvesting and cisterns is a philosophy thatpermaculture expert and author of Harvest the RainNate Downey, of New Mexico will share in a two-hour presentation, Water is the New Solar, from 7 to 9 p.m., June 27, and giving a workshop, The Bold, New American Landscape
Part 2: Active Water Harvesting with Cisterns, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., June 28, at Richland College. A local company, Rain Harvesting Supplies (RainHarvestingSupplies.com) , will donate a cistern to the school that will be installed on campus at their recycling center.

Most of the world lives off rainwater collection. It is a solution that often is low-tech, low cost and sustainable, even in the poorest of countries. In the U.S., we continually pump ground water for domestic, industrial and governmental needs at an accelerating rate. The practice is not particularly sustainable because it takes electricity to run the pumps, we are taking the water  out faster than nature can put it back in and the process can lead to earth collapse and groundwater contamination.

The Ogallala, or High Plains,aquifer, under the Great Plains, is the world's largest,running from South Dakota through Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and northern Texas, but much of it is shallow. It is important to begin to implement alternatives to emptying our aquifers now, while we still can.Learning how to collect rainwater is one those alternatives.It can be easy, cost-effective and can reduce erosion and loss of water due to evaporation.

Downey thinks that the water harvesting industry will soon join solar energy as an economic engine driving us toward real sustainability. As supplies of potable water shrink, providers of harvested roof water and stormwater will have a huge and growing market. In every water-challenged part of the world,a variety of jobs will be created. The next step is to efficiently manage this new industry, including financing. Localized water harvesting must be promoted on a massive scale before we deplete our rivers, drain our aquifers and devastate our estuaries.

The workshop begins with an overview of three basic approaches—at grade, underground or partially buried—and willprogress todescribing of the five functions of cistern systems: collection, conveyance, filtration, storage and distribution. The afternoonwill cover tanks,options and accessories and participants will build a cistern system at the Richland College state-of-the-art recycling center. The day will end with an extended Q&A followed by Downey's List of Cistern Dos and Don'ts.

Lecture cost is $10; workshop is $99. Location: 12800 Abrams Rd., Dallas. For more information about the Dallas Clean Economy Series, call 469-554-9202 or visit CarbonEconomySeries.com.