SOUTH BRUNSWICK — “We quickly filled the registration list weeks ago. People are on a waiting list.”
These are not the words of a college recruiter or concert vendor, but of Dorothy Cohen, master gardener and volunteer, referring to the Build a Rain Barrel Workshop presented by the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Middlesex County at the EARTH Center in South Brunswick on July 14.
A rain barrel is a large barrel with a screen on the top, a faucet toward the bottom and an overspill hose, and is placed on the corner of a house or building to collect rainwater to be reused. With just 1 inch of rainfall, a barrel can collect 500 gallons off an 800-square-foot roof. With 42 inches of rainfall annually in New Jersey, this amounts to 20,950 gallons.
So what is being done with all of this water? The rainwater is being used to water plants, which is especially useful during New Jersey’s end-of-summer droughts. Building and using a rain barrel has “a lot of different benefits,” Cohen explained.
First of all, there is water conservation, which will not only benefit the environment but will also benefit your wallet.
“One rain barrel will save 1,400 gallons a year,” she said.
Second, using a rain barrel “reduces rainwater runoff,” which breaks up the cycle of water hitting your roof, going down the gutter, onto a hard surface and into the storm drain.
“The rainwater has no opportunity to replenish,” Cohen said. “We need to disconnect this flow.”
Though this water cannot be used for drinking or cooking, it can be used on a sunny day to water plants and lawns.
Third, water pollution is controlled. “The junk from your roof is going down the storm drain and right to a stream, with no treatment.”
“Rain barrels are a part of a bigger picture of sustainable living,” Cohen said, and the community agrees.
Debby Miller, of Somerset, attended a compost workshop at the EARTH Center and has kept up with it as well as her gardening. After being placed on the center’s mailing list, she was interested in continuing on the environmentally friendly path to making and using a rain barrel.
Diane Tedaldi of Brooklyn, N.Y., had the same idea. “I am here with my friend Gina. She’s a master gardener. I’ve done composting and I’m on to a new gardening project.”
Tedaldi is proud to say that she was the first of her neighbors in Brooklyn to have a composting bin and will now have the first rain barrel.
“My mom pays for water in Brooklyn. She’ll love it,” she said.
Tedaldi also commented on the program itself, saying, “These workshop teachers are so passionate about what they do. [Cohen] did such a good job. I thought she was a veteran, but she just graduated.”