Now that the sunshine looks like it might be sticking around for a while, some Muskokans may be hoping for just a little bit of rain.
The District of Muskoka ran a subsidized rain barrel program that ended July 17. It sold out, and those who purchased them will be picking them up over the next week, and eager to fill them with rain water.
“The program is to encourage water conservation,” says Rebecca Francis, Manager of the District’s Continuous Improvement Unit (pictured at right above). “We are blessed here with plentiful water resources but we always need to be mindful of where we are taking the water from.”
Francis notes that plants prefer non-treated water, so a rain barrel is a great way to get free water for your gardens.
She also hopes that this pilot program will start the conversation about disconnecting downspouts from the sanitary sewer system for residents who are on municipal services. “(A rain barrel) is where they can put some of the water and then think about ways that they can make the transition so we aren’t treating rain water at our treatment plants.”
Most of the 310 rain barrels sold were partially subsidized by the District. The program was open only to Muskoka residents who could purchase one barrel at a rate of $25, and more at the full price of $46. Residents who purchased a rain barrel to disconnect their downspouts from the waste water system can apply to have their rain barrel fully subsidized – the amount will appear as a credit on their water and sewer bill.
Francis says the feedback on the program has been positive so far and that she’ll be relaying its success to District Council. Whether or not it will run again as a partially subsidized program in 2018 will be up to council in its 2018 budget deliberations.
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Brian Tapley says
Can anybody explain to me how rain barrels help the environment.
I can see that if you are connecting your eavestrough to the sanitary sewer system (something that should never be done in the first place) that a change to a rain barrel might help.
Generally and in my case, my rain barrel would fill to overflowing in a matter of minutes and then exit to the ground as usual.
One cannot use the water for anything but plant watering due to all the “stuff” that will wash off the roof and if the roof is metal, unpainted, the zinc will render it fairly useless for plants too as it will be toxic enough to kill them.
In order to use the rain barrel water one needs to either use the 5000 year old watering can technique or invest in some kind of pump to pressurize this water into a sprinkler system, one very slow and inefficient the other very expensive.
The only advantage of a rain barrel that I can see is that it delays the delivery to the ground of about 45 gallons of water by a few days. This could be handled by a rock filled leaching pit or simply by well graded topography during the landscape process of building the house.
I suppose that if one is on municipal water supply, or a limited volume well, where one pays for water supply or is limited in volume, a water barrel might be of some help. My experience is that when watering a garden, 45 gallons is almost a negligible amount of water however. A case in point when I have to water my vegetable garden I use about 3 to 4 hundred gallons per hour and when it needs water this is only enough if watered for 8 to 10 hours per day. In this example I used a minimum of 3000 gallons so my little 45 gallon rain barrel would be less than 1.5%. As noted negligible.
I do have to pay for electricity to run the pump. The supply is a lake so that is effectively unlimited.
Note that I’d still need to run the pump to use the rain barrel water.
So back to my original question, what are the amazing benefits of these barrels such that the District is so happy to see them that they subsidize them?
Can someone please tell me?