LANCASTER: By taking up the chant of slow it, spread it, and sink it. Brad Lancaster's crusade is to bring back the ancient methods. Now rainwater harvesting is as old as civilization, but it's been largely forgotten as we developed pumped-piped water systems. ROBBINS: Brad Lancaster has two books and a Web site devoted to rainwater harvesting. ROBBINS: So rather than getting - trying to get rid of the water, you're trying to keep it.
LANCASTER: And we're directing the overflow water from that and any runoff from the pathways and patios into adjoining planting basins. It's coming down in buckets, in two buckets all over his yard and into a 1,200 gallon cistern on the side of his house in Tucson, a place which receives on average, just 12 inches of rain a year, half of which come in torrents during the three summer months. ROBBINS: Brad Lancaster preaches salvation from the heavens in the form of water. BRAD LANCASTER (Rainwater Harvester): Yeah, a wonderful summer monsoon downpour that's flooded the streets and is filling the tanks. TED ROBBINS: The tall, thin evangelist with a red beard doesn't have to pray for rain. NPR's Ted Robbins joined him under the pouring skies. That's how people in the mostly parched city of Tucson think of Brad Lancaster, a tireless proselytizer for harvesting water.
Coming out of the monsoon season in Arizona, we make a return visit to one person who's been loving the dark clouds, the Rainman.
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