ISO Factsheet on Rainbarrel use and maintenance

[Kirsten Saylor]

Hello!  

I'm looking for a factsheet or similar on how to maintain and test a rainbarrel to demonstrate safe water use on a food-producing garden.  This is for a Garden To Cafeteria program where the garden team would like to use a rainbarrel/water barrel either collecting rooftop rain or by a patio roof, or to be filled by a hose for easier volunteer support.   

Questions I hope it can answer... 

1) What kinds of things should the water be tested for and why?  

2) What times of the year should it be tested?

3) Who or what should do the testing

4) How to clean a rainbarrel properly, and how often?

5) How to store a rainbarrel during the winter

6) Types of materials to use for a rainbarrel at a school garden

7) How to check for emerging issues and troubleshooting for these

Thanks!  Kirsten 

Kirsten Saylor

School Garden Specialist consultant

Saint Paul Public Schools

[Rick Sherman]

Hi Kirsten,

During my research in making our School Garden Food Safety Training & Documentation Manual, I found that there are really no standards at the national or my state level, so after a lot of discussion we landed on the following:

• Municipal water is fine, although we've had issues with what carries that water to the garden (e.g. lead pipes).  Have resources to deal with that on our website.
• water sources other than municipal water (rainwater collection systems, wells, ponds, whatever) should be tested for total coliform bacteria and other microorganisms such as E. Coli at least once per year.
• test kits are available at places like home depot and amazon, that test for just about everything.  they're cheap, and we make no validity of their claims of how well they work. Probably a good start to see if you might have problems.
• local extension is also a good place to start to recommend testing.
• we've had folks that use runoff from roofs that have asphalt or other funky stuff, but use that water for watering their flowers / shrubs.
• Being a former foodservice director and I see huge, opaque plastic collection systems that are green or black with mold on the inside. I would love a system you could clean and sanitize, but I doubt if a lot of those systems have that.  For instance, a rain barrel usually has a hole on top and a spigot on the bottom.  would be neat if the top lid could come off.  I always say when I'm doing my trainings - "would you drink out of that?"  Although it's different for getting the water up the roots of plants, you still don't want contaminated water directly on leafy parts you would directly eat.  Still, I say test the water, if the water tests good, you're good to go.
• Best type of material would be food grade plastic that you could sanitize.

Also on the above link, there's a lot of other rainwater links and resources, one from you guys! hope that helps.

[Tegan Hagy]

Hi Kristen & Rick! 

In addition to Ricks wonderful resource, I found that NJ Cooperative Extension conducted a (very tiny) sample study on rainbarrel testing that could be useful here, it concludes with guidelines for testing and safe watering and harvesting practices, 

https://njaes.rutgers.edu/fs1218/ 

They also have a variety of other guides that answer some of the questions you posed about rain barrels Kristen. 

Hope this is helpful! 

Warmly, 

Tegan 

Roots to Shoots Consulting  

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[Sam Ullery (OSSE)]

Hi Kirsten, 

Here's a nice pamphlet that we use in DC to help  homeowners maintain their rain barrels.  https://doee.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ddoe/service_content/attachments/Homeowner%20Maintenance%20sheet%20%2010.pdf