Additional information on keeping your rain barrel mosquito-free, courtesy of The Green Institute's Corrie Zoll.
Mark Snyder Windom Park ------ Forwarded Message From: "Corrie Zoll" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 11:18:40 -0600 Subject: RE: [Mpls] Rainbarrels? There are a few things you can do to keep mosquitoes out of your rain barrel. My rain barrel has a screen on top to keep the mosquitoes out. The downspout on the side of my house pours out onto the screen. The screen also keeps out leaves and gunk that are washed down from my gutters. Not to mention keeping out children and squirrels. All I need to do is brush off the leaves and sticks every once in a while. Another option is to hook up your rain barrel to a soaker hose that leads away from the house. This would drain the rain barrel slowly over a few days so that mosquito larvae would not have enough time to hatch. If your goal is stormwater management, then this is a very solid option. Because if your rain barrel is full and you don't use the water before the next rain, then you aren't actually harvesting any rainwater. I have heard of other strategies, including pouring a bit of vegetable oil on top of the water in your barrel (evidently this suffocates the larvae) or dropping in a few goldfish for the summer (they eat the wigglers). I am not familiar with doing either of these. Working with Bernie Waibel at Seward Neighborhood Group, we taught some workshops last summer on building rain barrels from salvaged materials. They were great workshops, and there was demand to hold several more. Unfortunately we found the logistics of transportation, storage, and workshop prep to be unrealistic for our small program. I would be happy to work with someone who wanted to try to make these workshops happen again. Corrie Zoll The Green Institute 612-278-7119 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------ End of Forwarded Message REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[email protected] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
