The Gift of Good Rain
December 2022
Yes, we’re crowing about it! We’d be hard pressed to find better gifts, or gifts more generously given, than those that come from the Earth. At Boxerwood we are always striving to be good stewards of these gifts. To that end, we’ve recently completed a project to store and to mete out the great gift of good rain.
This fall we’ve constructed a rainwater harvesting system for The Roost, an open pavilion that serves as one of our outdoor classrooms. Rainwater harvesting from a building is straightforward: gutters collect rainwater and channel it to a tank or barrel for later use. We added gutters to The Roost, and sized our tank to capture all of the runoff from a 1” rain event. (To calculate runoff from a given area, the formula is 1″ of rain x 1 sq. ft. = 0.623 gallons. The Roost roof is 384 square feet, so a 1” rain will yield about 240 gallons of water.)
Our seedling nursery is downhill from The Roost, and we will use the collected water to keep young potted trees thriving. We had been using city water (which we pay for) for these trees, but the chlorine in treated water isn’t good for plants. Rain water, on the other hand, is free, and it’s clean!
Additionally, rain runoff from The Roost roof (free bonus tongue twister!) was causing erosion around the structure as well as downhill. Now, instead of sheeting off the roof, rainfall is captured, so we’re preventing erosion and keeping our topsoil in place. This harvesting system benefits Boxerwood, and it benefits our watershed neighbors downstream. Excess sediment from erosion is a leading factor in the Chesapeake Bay’s poor health, and preventing erosion where we work and play has beneficial impacts all the way to the Bay.
A grant from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Natural Bridge Soil and Water Conservation District paid for the materials and installation costs for the new gutters and storage tank. Boxerwood is grateful to these partners for their ongoing support of our stewardship projects. By spring we’ll also have educational signage and maybe, before too long, some fine artwork on our catchment tank. Interested in funding for installing a rainwater harvesting system for your own fine roof? Contact Natural Bridge Soil and Water Conservation District or click HERE.
