Tucson’s rain-catching revolution

In the mid-1980s, Brent Cluff lived in a low-slung four-bedroom house on a quiet street in Oro Valley, an upscale suburb northwest of Tucson. Saguaro and prickly pear, mesquite trees and shrubs filled his front yard and most of the others on the street. His backyard, however, stood out, with peach, plum and apricot trees, and a vegetable garden overflowing with cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots and okra. It was completely irrigated by stormwater, captured from the street by an eight-inch pipe and used to fill a figure 8-shaped 100,000- gallon concrete pond. The pond was stocked with trout from northern Arizona; periodically, Cluff let Cub Scouts fish there.