While the best innovations of humanity may fall out of favor from time to time, the really good ideas continually make comebacks.
In recent times rainwater harvesting has seen a resurgence in use and is becoming a real alternative to using city supplied water. In the earlier part of the last century, everyone had rain barrels for watering the garden, washing up, and feeding livestock. With most of the population moving to the city, and using city supplied water the idea of having rain barrels fell into disuse. Now, however those same water systems are in jeopardy, due to aging equipment, increased population, and increased industry.
Water system managers have to make serious decisions that impact all of us; disinfection techniques that may have health consequences; the cost of improvements, that of course are paid by the tax payers; testing costs, as there are an ever increasing variety of pollutants; and even security measures as sad as that is to contemplate. Those of us who live in the US and Canada have been somewhat spoiled by our abundance of clean, affordable and easily available water, but the realization is sinking in that it is no longer so clean nor so abundant.
During my recent web surfing for rainwater harvesting information I found a couple of web sites from cities, who, as part of the their water management strategies, are serious about getting their townspeople into the idea of rainwater harvesting. One was from the city of San Francisco, who offered incentives for setting up rainwater harvesting systems to help offset demand on the city water system and help control run off during storms which can mitigate flooding. It would also reduce the volume of potable water used for non-potable applications such as irrigation and toilet flushing washing machines and car washing. The other site belonged to the Nanaimo Regional district that listed a "Rainwater Harvesting Incentive Program", where they have given people up to $750 towards installing cisterns and the like, Nanaimo is a city on the east side of Vancouver Island almost directly across the Strait of Georgia from Vancouver BC Canada. Even our neighbors to the north, with their abundant water resources are becoming concerned about the water supply.
Rainwater harvesting has been around as long as most civilizations. Archeologists have located ancient catchment tanks in all parts of the world. Romans had cisterns and hard covered courtyards to facilitate the collection of rain water to augment what came from the aqueducts. Middle age castles had rainwater collection tanks, and even ancient Housesteads Roman Fort in Northumberland from the 2nd century had a rainwater collection tank to flush their latrines.
There are added benefits to using rainwater, it is basically pH neutral and this makes it very soft so it's good for cleaning. It has not picked up any contaminants from being in contact with the ground, and it has no chemical disinfectants in it. We should all take a lesson from our ancestors and use it to look after the most precious commodity we have. The more we have to intervene in the processing of our water the higher the price will be and it will probably lower the quality.
If a small rain barrel is all you have room for you can still collect enough water for your indoor plants, or if you have the room and you want the whole package of cistern, roof cleaner and filters you are on track to helping yourself if there is ever a problem with your water.
For more information about protecting your drinking water. Check out these informative articles. You will find them very helpful.
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