In 1998, a man illegally cut holes in a Tucson street curb. The result changed the law.

In 1998, Brad Lancaster cut six openings into the curb outside his Tucson home. The cuts redirected rainwater from the street into the area between the road and sidewalk. The work was illegal at the time, and city officials did not know about it for three years, until Lancaster told them himself.

The results were difficult to ignore. Instead of flowing along the curb into storm drains, rainwater collected in basins that supported trees and other plants. Over time, the area became a shaded, food producing landscape with native and edible species, including fruit producing cactuses and plants with edible seeds.

Lancaster’s approach drew on older desert water practices used by Indigenous peoples, including earthworks designed to capture rain and help plants use it. In his neighborhood, similar basins now appear along streets and even in a roundabout.

Tucson later adopted the approach through its Storm to Shade program. The city offers homeowners a $2,000 rebate for streetside rainwater harvesting basins, and new commercial projects and road construction must include rainwater harvesting. City officials have credited Lancaster’s early work with helping shape those standards.