Milagro encourages and supports communal and personal water conservation, both for site uses and household uses.
From the selection of front-loading washing machines to water harvesting and wastewater recycling, our total use of potable water can be as little as 50 gallons per person per day.
Rainwater harvesting
This part of the Southwest has two rainy seasons, but the summer “monsoon” and winter rains together amount to only 12” of rain per year. At Milagro, we see rainwater as a precious resource that we harvest and use to nurture the community gardens.
The roofs of the buildings at Milagro are designed to collect and direct rainwater either to our garden areas or to our cisterns for storage.
The garden areas around our houses are landscaped into retention basins and swales that trap rainwater and let it drain slowly into the soil rather than running off.
Wastewater recycling
One of the more innovative features of Milagro is that all household wastewater is filtered through a "wetland" that uses natural plants and bacteria to purify the water. From there, it is recirculated into our community garden areas, providing sub-surface irrigation.
Water and energy use
Through permaculture design and wastewater recycling, we have created a lush landscape with minimal use of potable water. The trees planted in common and private spaces help in energy conservation by providing shade and by the effect of evapotranspiration, which cools the air around the houses.
Members of Milagro have long been deeply concerned regarding recycling, especially water, in the desert where there is so little. These concerns induced us to choose to recycle all of our wastewater.
In order to do that we constructed a wetlands wastewater treatment and reclamation process. Construction costs were partially offset by not having to install sewage pumps to lift our sewage to the end of the city sewage line. We also save the monthly sewer connection fee.
In operating this system waste is first received by septic tanks which settle the solids. Septic outflow is fed to one of two treatment beds. These treatment beds are 18 inches of gravel with a plastic 20-millimeter liner to avoid losing the liquid in to the ground. The gravel is topped with four inches o f mulch, mostly woodchips, which is planted with Bull Rushes and Sedges. The wastewater flows in one end of the treatment bed and overflows out the other end. During its time in the gravel bed it is further decomposed by bacteria living on the roots of the plants and on the surface of the gravel. The outflow from the treatment beds is gathered in a one thousand-gallon collection tank. A pump moves the reclaimed wastewater from that tank up through the center of the community where it is delivered from below ground to our landscaping. There is no odor.
This system was designed for 7,000 gal per day. But this community generates too little wastewater to satisfy all of the wetland's plant’s requirements during the summer months. We have implemented a cycle of shutting down one of the two treatment beds during the summer. It is unfortunate that of the two varieties of plants the larger and most water consuming (Bull Rushes) dies down in the winter and flourishes in the summer consuming the most water when we need it for our landscape. The Sedges need less water and grow the year around. We also harvest the dead bull rushes and use them as mulch in our landscaping.
There were several governmental agencies
that thought they had an interest in a wetlands serving a 28 home community. Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, Pima Association
of Governments, Pima County Waste Water Department, Tucson City Water Department, and
Our recycling efforts are paying off. Our community is alive with green, growing plants and trees. Our water bills
are minimal. We’ve been told that most individuals in