Montclair Launches WaterWise Conservation Effort

Montclair Sustainability Officer Gray Russell inspects shipment of rain barrels
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Retailing for around $150, the Township purchased 50-gallon “Ivy”® Rain Barrels in bulk for $72 each. To encourage their use, they will be sold for $36, saving residents over $100 on a barrel.

Montclair is embarking on a comprehensive water conservation and efficiency program for residents, institutions, businesses, and municipal operations – WaterWise Montclair – with the goal of reducing water consumption in our community.

By conserving water more effectively, and by using more water-efficient products, our community can save money and energy, help to mitigate the effects of drought, and reduce over-consumption of our most precious natural resource.

The Montclair Water Bureau and Office of Environmental Affairs have teamed up to take the first step, offering rain barrels to township residents at a deeply-discounted price. Retailing for around $150, the Township purchased 50-gallon “Ivy”® Rain Barrels in bulk for $72 each. To encourage their use, they will be sold for $36, saving residents over $100 on a barrel.

Rain barrels are a great way to capture rain, a source of clean water, and use it on your own property. Instead of channeling the rain on the roof into gutters and downspouts, and letting it flow down our driveways and over the ground, into the street and then down the municipal storm drains -- picking up pollutants as it flows -- to finally enter our local waterways as stormwater runoff, rain can instead be diverted into your rain barrel and then used for watering plants and irrigating your garden, conserving your use of drinking water.

Using rain barrels this way is also a stormwater management technique known as “green infrastructure” -- using simple low-cost measures to reduce or slow runoff in order to prevent flooding and improve the quality of our water resources.

WaterWise Montclair will help you save water. For more information, or to order your Ivy® Rain Barrel, contact the office of Environmental Affairs at 973-509-5721 or email grussell@montclairnjusa.org.