It’s Raining Rain! Colorado Legalizes Rainwater

It’s Raining Rain! Colorado Legalizes Rainwater
A new law in Colorado finally makes it legal for citizens to capture rainwater. If you’re in a legal rain community, here are ways to save money using free water from the sky. Collect rainwater in a barrel or cistern, and use it in your yard and garden
By Emily Main RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA 07-02-09
Link to full article below

Citizens of Colorado can now enjoy one of the true staples of green homeownership: the rain barrel. Once a hallmark of water-conscious outlaws in the state, barrels had been considered illegal under an old law stating that all rainwater was essentially public property, and as such, couldn’t be diverted from municipal water supplies. But two new laws passed this week changed all that, and now, with reckless abandon, Coloradoans are free to divert rainfall to their hearts’ content. Here are five things that they, and you, can do with captured rain:

1. Water your crops.
Collect water in a rain barrel and use it on your lawn, garden, and indoor houseplants. You can make your own barrel, provided you use a container constructed from food-grade materials . Or go the easy route and buy one premade from recycled plastic from any number of online retailers.

2. Create a rain garden.
With all the rain we’ve had in the Northeast this spring, barrels wouldn’t make a dent in storing all the precipitation that’s fallen. Digging trenches seems a more appropriate solution, as are rain gardens, collections of flood-tolerant plants. They divert the water from storm drains, which can overflow and wash pollutants into nearby rivers and streams during heavy rainfall. You can download how-to guides for creating your own from the University of Wisconsin Extension Service.

To read the full article: http://www.rodale.com/collecting-rainwater?cm_mmc=DailyNewsNL-_-2009_07_02-_-Top5-_-NA

******************************************************
We are monks, & we offer these with love. If you enjoyed this, would you please make a donation? Even $1 or $5 helps us to serve you.

A right to rain

A right to rain
by Daniel Moss
26 Jun 2009
(link to full article, see below)


One man gathers rain to recharge groundwater reserves and another pushes salt water through a desalination plant for subsequent sale. Are these both viable solutions to the world’s water crisis?

With the impacts of climate change, water waste, contamination and mismanagement driving us ever closer to the edge of a cliff, ensuring clean and plentiful water to both people and nature becomes tougher and more urgent each day.

A seemingly broad variety of water management strategies was on display at the recent 5th World Water Forum (WWF), confusing participants with repackaged policy prescriptions and technological bells and whistles. Helping people sift the wheat from the chaff were discussions of how to manage water as a commons. A concise set of principles offered a hopeful roadmap forward.

The forum was a mostly a civil affair, with the notable exception of riot police beating and arresting 25 Turks protesting peacefully for public water and against its privatization. The World Water Forum is convened by the World Water Council, a private, French non-profit whose board of governors tilts towards water privateers.

It’s a tri-annual gathering of government delegations, non- governmental organizations, international financial institutions, and private industry representatives. This year’s forum featured an advocacy effort by 16 governments to move the forum to the U.N., presumably a more accountable institution. The well-subscribed conference - over 30,000 people in attendance - seemed to demonstrate not only that the water crisis is a shared concern, but also, perhaps, the amount of money that can be made trading this precious fluid.

Ragendra Singh, known as the rain gatherer, travelled across Asia to Istanbul to address the forum. Working in arid Rajastan, India, Singh has revived the ecology of the Arwari river. After twenty years of building small earthen dams called johads and a movement called Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), flow has returned to the once dry river, providing sustenance to thousands of families.

At a WWF trade booth, a representative of a Spanish desalination company projected powerpoint slides of barges docked off of coastal cities, sucking in sea water and spitting out drinking water (and brine and emissions). Over 60,000,000 people worldwide drink desalinated water.

The two faces of water technology couldn’t have been more dissimilar – and more caricatured. Ragendra Singh wore a long white kurta. He spoke of water with a mystical air, a grin spreading beneath his ragged beard. The balding desalination representative wore a grey suit, his lips pursed in grim determination to sell his technology.

Both men claim to fulfill a critical need in getting water to those who need it - in Ragendra’s case, beneficiaries include plants and animals. Is there a way for the average person, simply looking to get water to the thirsty, to evaluate if these two strategies are complementary or contradictory?

As a society, we can perhaps agree – although I may be overly optimistic here - that in its broadest conception, water is a commons, a public good to be shared by all and passed on undiminished in quality and quantity to future generations.

In a session on this topic entitled, “Water Commons: Global Experiences in Progressive Water Management”, Maude Barlow, Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the UN General Assembly, suggested ten principles to manage water for the common good. The principles seem a useful measuring stick against which strategies of water management can be assessed. Does the strategy do the following?

1) Affirm water as a commons, that is, it belongs to everyone and no one, passed onto future generations in sufficient volume and quality;
2) Ensure the earth and all of its ecosystems rights to water for their survival – indeed it is on those ecosystems that human life depends;
3) Conserve water as society’s first course of action (enforced by law), including suggesting drastic changes to industrial and agricultural practices;
4) Treat watersheds – the source of water - as a common as well and not simply the water itself;
5) Encourage local, community management while legally binding communities to respect upstream and downstream neighbors’ rights;
6) Forge or affirm trans-boundary agreements that respect water sovereignty for both communities and nations;
7) Provide water as a basic principle of justice, not as an act of charity;
8) Ensure public delivery and fair pricing of water;
9) Promote enshrining the right to water in nation-state constitutions, laws and a UN covenant;
10) Employ innovative legal tools to protect water and manage water as a commons, including through public and community trusts.

To read the full article: http://www.grist.org/article/a-right-to-rain

How to start a home rainbarrel project

How to Start a Home Rainbarrel Project
30 Mar 2009

As we prepare for April’s gentle showers, there’s one thing that’s certain: we’ll need that rainwater once the weather warms up.

For most of us, it’s easy to take water for granted. Turn on the tap, and it’s there — usually. But shifting climate patterns and populations are challenging municipal water systems around the world. Australia is just emerging from one its most brutal summers in living memory. The U.S. Southwest is struggling through a multi-year drought, and big cites such as Atlanta have come perilously close to draining their taps dry.

Part of the problem is that virtually every drop of water you’ll use today is treated drinking water, from your morning coffee to the stuff you use in the yard. But we can take a little stress off the system by collecting rain whenever it’s available.

Rainfall is considered greywater — unsuitable for human consumption without further processing, but immediately useful for a variety of garden and household needs. Plants love rainwater, thanks to its softness and lack of chlorine treatment. So let’s start there, with a simple and inexpensive system designed to take a little load off your water bill while keeping your garden green.
Remember rain barrels?

A plastic rain barrel system Your grandparents may have kept a rain barrel. They’re one of humanity’s oldest means of storing fresh water. Rain barrels have seen something of a revival in recent years, thanks to modern construction techniques and better consumer awareness of the need to conserve water.

While you can spend more for a large commercially produced system, setting up a basic rain barrel system is the kind of project you can complete in an afternoon for less than a hundred dollars Since even a light rain can produce several hundred gallons of rooftop runoff, you’ll have little trouble filling your barrel. An inch of rain on a 1,000 square foot roof will put over 600 gallons into a gutter system — much more than most people collect. Ready to have some free water at the ready? Let’s go shopping!
Modern rain barrels

A contemporary rain barrel system is a simple affair. They’re also getting easier to find. Your local home improvement store is likely to have a couple ready-to-install models to choose from, and there are dozens of varieties available online. A typical setup is a diversion line which runs from your rain gutter downspout, a length of tubing, and one or more barrels with a cover. The barrel will be mounted with a spigot or hose fitting at the bottom for water withdrawal. You can also buy free-standing systems designed to collect rainwater on their own.

The barrel itself must be pretty sturdy: a 50 gallon unit will weigh over 400 pounds when full, more than enough to burst something like a plastic garbage can. You can buy them up to about 80 gallons in a variety of shapes, and it’s possible to daisy chain several together.

Clean Air Gardening and Aaron’s Rain Barrels both have broad selections of commercial rain barrels and related gear. If you’d prefer to homebrew a more traditional looking system, Kentucky Whiskey Barrels is a great source of handmade oak barrels retired from the Bourbon industry. In either case, you’re looking for a unit with a screen for excluding debris and insects (crucial in mosquito-prone areas), and a secure lid to keep out animals and curious children. Plastic barrels should feature opaque coloring to discourage algae growth, and UV-resistant plastic.
Setting up your barrel

Barrels should be elevated to ease watering. Cinder blocks are a popular and cheap way to do this. If you’ve got pets or children. you’ll want to be sure your barrel is located close to where you’ll eventually want water, but away from foot traffic. A tipped-over rainbarrel could easily injure or kill someone. Against a wall is a good choice. Use straps to secure the barrel if you have any questions about its security.

NaturalRainWater.com — a comprehensive rain barrel resource — has a gallery of installations to give you some ideas. Once your barrel is set up, it should be nearly maintenance free.

A fairly complex rain barrel system

While we’ve primarily discussed above-ground rainbarrels, it is also possible to construct much larger, below-ground systems. This is a considerably more expensive option, requiring pumps to extract the water and sometimes featuring filtration systems to make it potable. The diagram above — taken from a handout published by the King County (Washington) Department of Natural Resources and Parks — shows a hybrid arrangement capable of storing and distributing several hundred gallons of rainwater. You can download a PDF version of the pamphlet here.

If it routinely drops below freezing where you live during the winter, it’s wise to drain your barrel and store it for the season to avoid cracking. It will be ready to go again in plenty of time for spring.
But sometimes rain isn’t free

Think back to splashing through puddles as a kid. There’s something joyful about a good rain shower. Rain seems so simple, clean, and free.

That’s not always the case. In large sections of the Southwest, for instance, it’s illegal to harvest rainwater. This is largely the heritage of an era in which cattle and sheep ranchers wielded a lot of political power. They depended on rain to fill the streams which watered their flocks, so laws were passed to prohibit any impediment to stormwater runoff. That still includes rainbarrels.

You may also have local ordinances or neighborhood covenants prohibiting rainwater harvest. So check your local regulations and building codes before starting a rainbarrel project.
So enjoy!

As green home improvements go, rainbarrels are a fairly simple, low-cost project with long term returns. They help take some load off municipal water and waste treatment systems, add value to your home, and provide a hedge against drought for landscaping and kitchen gardens. Invest a few hours next weekend and gets started.

Here at Lighter Footstep, we’re big fans of HGTV. Here’s a video segment showing a solid DIY rainbarrel project using a 50 gallon food-grade plastic barrel and common plumbing accessories. It may provide some inspiration for your own setup.

Selected resources

Rainbarrels and supplies

* Aaron’s Rain Barrels
http://www.ne-design.net/

* Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=rain+barrels&x=0&y=0

* Clean Air Gardening
http://www.cleanairgardening.com/rainbarrels.html

* Home Depot
http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?keyword=rain%2Bbarrels&langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

* Kentucky Whiskey Barrels
http://www.kentuckybarrels.com/?gclid=CPHjzdXjyJkCFQwxawodLXfQsg

* Rainwater Harvesting Specialists
http://www.irainharvest.com/

* Woodland Direct
http://www.woodlanddirect.com/Outdoor/Rain-Barrels

General rainbarrel information

* Rain barrel information and sources (King County, Washington)
http://www.kingcounty.gov/environment/stewardship/nw-yard-and-garden/rain-barrels.aspx

* Rainbarrel pictures (Treehugger Forums)
http://forums.treehugger.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4372&start=0&sid=b4d6bb4c8cfa58a92e7237d6b7360690

* Rainbarrel videos (YouTube)
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=rain+barrels&aq=0&oq=rain+barrel

* Rainwater Harvesting (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainwater_harvesting

* Super Cheap and Easy DIY Wooden Rain Barrel Idea (The Fun Times Guide)
http://green.thefuntimesguide.com/2009/03/cheap_diy_wooden_rain_barrel.php

* Two Alternatives to Rainbarrels (Planet Green)
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/rain-barrel-alternatives.html