So, I used maybe a thousand gallons of city water to pressure wash two of our 275 gallon rain barrels in the driveway yesterday. I felt like posting a sign that said, "Yes, I do see the irony." Anyway, I've decided to give up on harvesting rain water for more or less the following reasons (look Cari, it's a list!):
1. Our yard is minuscule and these things take up about 100 cubic feet apiece, plus the connecting hoses, manifolds, and other annoying trip hazards.
2. The yard is starting to look halfway decent and it's becoming more challenging to find aesthetically pleasing ways to camouflage four ginormous white industrial containers.
3. Rudy put in a sprinkler/drip watering system that pretty much obviates the need for all that extra rainwater. Or rain, for that matter.
4. There's already a giant white rain storage setup pretty close to us from whence our city water comes. It's called Mt. Hood.
5. I thought it would take a while to collect 1,100 gallons of rainwater. It doesn't. Two or three days usually does it. One if it's really pouring. And seeing as how nothing needs water in the winter when it's raining (duh), what does one do with the water from the remaining seven months of rain between November and June? Generally, we run a garden hose out to the curb where it runs into the street and down the sewer. Kind of like it would have done anyway. Without the barrels. And finally...
6. Nasty things happen to untreated water that sits in a big vat for months and months. Especially if the vat is translucent white plastic, letting enough light through for some amazing photosynthesis. Algae blooms explode into stringy fuzzy phosphorescent, pipe-clogging goo and by spring, the water has more or less solidified into a murky biomass. Interesting I suppose, but not terribly useful. So, then I use maybe a thousand gallons of city water cleaning them out every year...
Hmmm. Maybe I'll look into solar panels...
