After the skies cleared last weekend, Tyrone Jarvis and a handful of his friends and family got to work at Purpose Park in Norfolk.
The group has spent the past month or so transforming two shipping containers into a system that will absorb and reuse the ample rainwater that falls on the site.
The Society for a Secure and Sustainable Water Future, Jarvis’ new nonprofit, is spearheading the effort.
“We're here as our first project to show what rainwater harvesting can do,” he said. “How it could benefit communities and the sustainable practice (could) have a ripple effect.”
Rainwater harvesting simply means capturing and redirecting rainwater. It can range from a small backyard rain barrel to commercial-scale operations.
Jarvis, owner of Go Green Auto Care in Newport News, fell in love with the practice more than a decade ago, when he set up a homemade system at his auto shop.
“We plugged in the pump and turned on the water faucet and this crystal clear, beautiful water came out,” he previously told WHRO. “It was something that we thought we had just stumbled upon like a treasure.”
Soon afterward, Newport News officials told Jarvis his rainwater system violated city code and threatened to condemn the building. He spent the following years fighting to keep the system in place and ultimately helped craft state legislation to expand access to the practice.
His efforts culminated last year, when Gov. Glenn Youngkin gave the stamp of approval to the new rules. They outline standards for making rainwater drinkable, including a requirement for permits for potable systems, but not for other uses, such as toilet flushing.
Jarvis and his wife, Leslie, recently formed their nonprofit to help more residents and businesses across Virginia adopt rainwater systems.
“We have to stop seeing rain as a nuisance and start recognizing that it's a vital resource and a viable solution to many problems, from flood mitigation to stormwater runoff and pollution and water scarcity,” said Leslie Jarvis, who’s now pursuing a degree in environmental studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Tyrone Jarvis was honored by the governor this summer at an event celebrating deregulation.
The experience “really strongly urged me to not stop with the laws and the regulations we've been writing, but to come out and bring those actions to fulfillment right here in the communities all over the Commonwealth,” Jarvis said.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation recommended Purpose Park as a place to start.
The site on Church Street was long vacant, until a few years ago when teenagers helped transform it into a community garden, led by the nonprofit Teens With a Purpose.
Residents now pick and take home fresh fruits, herbs and vegetables. A rain garden installed by the Bay Foundation in 2022 lines one edge of the garden, helping soak up excess water that traditionally flooded the area.
The new rainwater system is meant to complement these existing natural solutions, Jarvis said.
Two shipping containers, painted with community murals, are currently used as equipment storage. The volunteers have retrofitted the tops with wood and metal to create sloped roofs.
On Sunday, they worked to install gutters that will direct rainwater into tanks inside the containers, which can each hold up to 550 gallons.
“On an inch of rain, we'll get 137 gallons in each container,” Jarvis said.
A solar-powered pump will then push the water through hoses to irrigate the surrounding garden. The team also plans to plant cherry trees in front of each container to absorb water when the system overflows.
The Jarvis’ plan to use the Norfolk project as a “learning lab” to educate people about rainwater harvesting and replicate it across the state.
In the meantime, they still have some regulatory battles ahead – including with their homeowners association, which has prevented the family from installing a system at their home in Williamsburg.
