Dunwoody Hosts Rain Barrel Workshop

If you think rain barrels aren’t exciting, you’ve never heard Bonny Putney talk about them.

Bonny, headwaters outreach coordinator for the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, led a rain barrel workshop at Dunwoody City Hall Thursday evening. Several dozen residents of Dunwoody, Sandy Springs and nearby communities attended the class, which was held at the invitation of Dunwoody’s .

For $35, attendees received a 60-gallon rain barrel, a kit with all the parts needed to make the rain barrel work and an informative and inspirational talk by Bonny about the importance of water conservation by Atlanta gardeners.

She explained that we all live in a watershed, an area where water drains to the same place. In most of the Atlanta area, including Dunwoody, that’s the Chattahoochee River. And the watershed we live in is, not surprisingly, the Chattahoochee Watershed. Bonny said this is the smallest of the 2,110 watersheds for the largest number of people in the continental United States – just 1,036 square miles for a population of 3.5 million.

There are 5.5 million people in the 28-county Atlanta Metropolitan Statistical Area and 4.1 million in the 10-country Atlanta region, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC). Some of these folks, though, are in the Oconee Watershed, including two-thirds of heavily populated Gwinnett County. A portion of DeKalb County is also in the Oconee Watershed.

Rainfall in the Chattahoochee Watershed drains into the Chattahoochee River and flows to the Gulf of Mexico. Rain that falls in the Oconee Watershed drains into the Oconee River and flows to the Atlantic Ocean.

Just how small is the Chattahoochee Watershed? By comparison, Bonny noted that Charlotte has six times as much land area as Atlanta to capture water.

The ratio of people to the size of the watershed is just the beginning of the problems for Atlanta and water.

Another is our love affair with concrete. Bonny showed slide after slide of aerial images including the Mall of Georgia, Spaghetti Junction, and sprawling subdivisions to illustrate how development is replacing Atlanta’s green space.

We pour concrete over the equivalent of 56 acres of land a day, she said. The result is that 100 billion gallons of rainwater pours into our sewers as runoff every year, according to Coca-Cola, which uses large amounts of water to make its beverages. The runoff never makes it to the soil where it can seep into the aquifer and replenish the supply.

Power plants contribute to the problem by using more than half of all surface water in Georgia – 3.3 billion gallons a day, according to the ARC. To put this in household terms, Bonny says it takes the equivalent of two bathtubs of water a day to generate the electricity to power one refrigerator for a 24-hour period.

And in Atlanta, 20 percent of the water we use – or intend to use – never makes it to its destination. The prime culprit is leaky pipes, aided by inefficient plumbing and appliances.

Bonny’s doing her part to solve the problem. One rain barrel at a time.

She says that in the summer, outdoor water use can account for more than 20 percent of all residential water consumption.

Not only will rain barrels reduce the reliance on city or county water, Bonny says her plants know the difference. They grow better with water from her rain barrel than they do with water from the house, she said.

To the relief of many, she told the class that setting up rain barrels is easy. She even pre-drilled the hole for the spigot.

The process starts, she said, with painting the barrels so algae won't grow in them.  The barrels, which were donated by Coca-Cola and once held syrup, are plastic, so they need a primer and a paint that will work on plastic, Bonnie advised.

The next step, she said, is to find a suitable location for the rain barrel. This place should be flat and stable because a barrel full of water weighs 480 pounds. Bonny recommended a base of concrete blocks and emphasized the barrel needs to be at least two feet off the ground. The higher off the ground, the more water pressure there will be to hook a hose up to it. However, she cautioned that no matter how high the base, there will not be enough pressure for a soaker hose.

Then it’s a matter of following the instructions on the kit that comes with the barrel to connect it to a downspout. She noted that home owners don’t have to cut the gutter downspout apart, just drill a hole into it and attach a hose.

She also offered a special tip at this stage of the installation – use a piece of pantyhose as a filter to keep debris out of the rain barrel.

The only other rain barrel workshop scheduled at this time is on Aug. 1, and it is full. However, a Sustainability Commission member may put on more classes at a different location with Bonny.

For more information, contact Rebecca Keefer at Dunwoody City Hall, 678 382-6811, Rebecca.keefer@dunwoodyga.gov or visit http://www.dunwoodyga.gov. Space is limited to 25 people. Reservations are required. If space opens up in the Aug. 1 class or new classes are scheduled, be sure to drive a vehicle large enough to safely transport a 60-gallon rain barrel.