What ever happened to that?
All of that.

The City of Hartford, through its Retain The Rain initiative, gave rain barrels to residents. I was thinking about how this program had potential, but only ran two years, and how that was too bad because unless something is Instagrammable, people aren’t lining up for it straight away. (Rain barrels are not sunflower fields or cookie butter ice creams) There’s lots of reluctance to try “new” (new to them) things, and probably lots of expectation that they’ll have indefinite time to decide. We witnessed with how CT DEEP rolled out the e-bike rebate program that limitations are not always communicated well. With that, lots of people seemed surprised that the pot of money was not unlimited, and that that not everyone who applied for a voucher would get one because of limited supply. I think this comes from the way people tend to not operate with beginners in mind. Something teaching taught me was to always spell out what I thought of as basics but someone simply would not know if they only began or transferred in that semester. It’s applicable to all workplaces, whether people need to communicate about a grant-funded program to the public or explain a quirky annual staff event so new hires can make sense of it.

I had other frustrations with the Retain the Rain program — there was the assumption of car ownership in a city where many residents just do not. To get a barrel, you had to go to a site in Blue Hills, which is not centrally located in the city. Even if you could manage to get a barrel on the bus, you would have needed to take two buses to the site from most places in Hartford. The City was responsive to this critique and arranged deliveries by request, and varied pickup locations in the future. That is more than I can say of some statewide environmental organizations that are silent when I point out — typically by email — that they scheduled their meeting/event at a time and place inaccessible to those using public transit. Lots of organizations do this, but it stands out as extra problematic when a group that claims to care about the Earth still plans as if cars are not a major part of the problem, while excluding those who cannot or will not drive. Since most of these events do not involve collecting giant objects for transport, it seems strange that sometimes a response is about carpooling rather than, going forward, planning events that are more widely accessible. Some orgs scratch their heads over why their membership lacks diversity, while replicating exclusionary practices because (pick one): (a) car brain, (b) perceptions of convenience (to car drivers), (c) unwilling to Google something like “bus service in Connecticut” and take time to view their local transit district’s website, (d) sheer laziness in doing things the way they’ve always done them. I understand limited resources, but the second such groups put out directions for people to park but neglect to give directions for people to arrive by public transit, I question their commitment. And yes, both individual action matters as much as systemic change.

But I digress, and this digression felt more useful than me working info this piece every song lyric about rain. You wouldn’t have been able to stand it.

When I tried to find information about the rain barrel program, I was surprised to see the pages still up. The first year of Retain The Rain was in 2018. They did another round in 2019. And there’s my answer as to what happened. Sort of. There was a giveaway planned for 2020. Or as they put it [cue ominous music]: “Although we were looking forward to giving out rain barrels throughout March 2020, our distribution events are postponed indefinitely due to coronavirus / COVID-19 precautions.”

That third round apparently never happened. The Retain The Rain initiative — responsible for giveaways of trees and composters, also — dried up in 2021. The program got 300 rain barrels to residents over two years. Not too shabby, even with the doomed final round. The first year of the program was funded by the MDC and by Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation, the subsequent year(s) by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Unfortunately, many of the barrels I’ve seen around have not been connected to downspouts, which means that they are not retaining nearly the amount of rainwater as they could. Some community gardens like the one in Pope Park have filled them with water from hoses to ensure gardeners had a water source while others were unavailable. They’re serving a purpose, but not the one intended. In this case, a pavilion was built and the intention was to hook up barrels to downspouts; that project, unconnected to Retain The Rain (as far as I know), has stalled. And I sort of get it. Who doesn’t have half-finished home projects?

Hartford’s Office of Sustainability seems much less active now, with its Twitter last updated in April, and sporadically before that. Their blog hasn’t been updated since 2020. It looks like they had a solar program in the spring, but it’s hard to figure out what they’re doing now or if they’re still active. The most recent progress report from 2022 would be helpful, but the link expired. Already.

Individual action matters, as does systemic change, as does asking those with larger footprints to do more. Who else has noticed on a rainy day that a large corporation has its sprinklers running? Why do we accept such places as having expansive lawns, and in particular, ones that are purely ornamental. Have you ever seen those insurance companies using their lawns for anything? If you step foot on one, their security guards show up to tell you to leave. So, there are more questions: while pushing home gardeners to use less treated water for their flowers and vegetables, what are we doing to steer worse offenders from doing the same on landscapes with less biodiversity?

Climate Possibilities is a new series about climate mitigation, along with resilience, resistance, and restoration. It’s about human habitat preservation. It’s about loving nature and planet Earth, and demanding the kind of change that gives future generations the opportunity for vibrant lives. Doomers will be eaten alive, figuratively. All photographs are taken in Hartford, Connecticut unless stated otherwise.