Storm Brewing

These rain barrels sound fascinating. Tell me more!

by Brian Howard

So. Last Thursday, I attended a rain barrel workshop put on by the Water Department's Office of Watersheds. You've probably seen a rain barrel — they tend to be big and green and barrel-shaped, though some are more stealthy — and wondered what the heck this huge plastic monstrosity was. The occasion was a fine source of ridicule around the office because, as I learned, when you send a staff e-mail saying you're skipping happy hour to go to something called a "rain barrel workshop," you sound ridiculous. But I'd made a reservation, and I'd been curious for a while. So I and a bunch of fellow barrel-curious people gathered in Methodist Hospital's Morgan Conference Room on South Broad to listen to a presentation by PWD water resources engineer Laura Rozumalski.

I know what you're thinking: These rain barrels sound fascinating. Tell me more!

If you insist. They're essentially big containers that you connect to a home's downspout (the pipe that directs water off the roof and into the ground) for collecting rainwater. That water can then be used to irrigate gardens, window boxes, street trees or lawns. (It is not for drinking. Not even for pets.) Or you can just empty the barrel between storms. The idea is to reduce the burden on the city's sewer system during what water people like to call "rain events."

The water department has been conducting these workshops since 2003 to better manage a storm water system that's been compromised over the centuries, since many of Philadelphia's original creeks and streams were built over or converted to sewers. When the storm water system overflows into the sewage system — and some 200 gallons of rainwater flow off a typical row house roof during a storm — bad things happen. The alternative, building bigger pipes, costs a lot of money.

Philadelphia's broken up into seven watersheds — Darby and Cobbs Creek, Delaware, Lower Schuylkill, Pennypack, Poquessing, Tacony and Frankford, and Wissahickon — and if you check phillywatersheds.org you can find out which you live in and, if you check back often, when the next workshop in your watershed takes place (they're announced a month in advance). Oh, and the big draw is that registered attendees receive a $150, 54-gallon rain barrel, gratis.

Once I get my barrel hooked up and secured, I'll connect one of those porous soaker hoses up to it so that I'll never have to worry about watering my garden again. My mighty broccoli plant — which, since last I wrote about it, has become an unstoppable broccoli-producing machine — will be even more unstoppable.

It was a little bit like doomsday around here this week, our first in some five years without the services of Doron Taussig, who's left the loving arms of City Paper to study media/communications at Temple University. During Doron's tenure, which started way back in 2004, he's been a rock — as an intern, then as a staff writer and finally as news editor, the post he just left. A stellar writer, insightful editor and generally the smartest guy in the room, Doron will be missed, in these pages and especially in the office where his dry wit proved a welcome foil to the slapstick. Doron wasn't even out the door when he was offered a new gig, which is impressive in these lean times. In addition to his studies he'll be an editor at It's Our Money, the Daily News/WHYY/William Penn Foundation government watchdog blog. Visit him at philly.com/philly/blogs/our-money.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)