Inspiration from above: new rain catchers

MILO, Ore. - Rain, rain everywhere and not a drop to drink? Not if you're Rick Foster.

The 54-year-old classical guitarist invented, and now is selling, portable rainwater collectors that take advantage of Oregon's plentiful resource from the clouds.

"What I'm doing is really as old as the hills," said Foster, who lives with his wife and two daughters on a rural homestead more than 20 miles east of Canyonville.

But Foster added a twist to the old art of collecting the rain by designing a portable, relatively lightweight rain collector that uses acrylic plastic and vinyl sheeting.

He's selling his invention under the name Rick's RainCatchers via a Web site and through ads.

His design was born from desperation. The Fosters' well water is drinkable, but it was not particularly palatable, he said.

"Our water is hard, real hard. So much so we didn't like to drink it," Foster said. He bought a water distiller, but it took six hours just to distill one gallon.

So he looked into tapping into the 35 inches of rain that normally fall in south Douglas County each year. It seemed natural to Foster, whose family also uses solar cookers and a homemade solar-water-heating system at their home.

"I bought books on rain catching, looked on the Internet. I did all I could to buy a rain catcher," he said.

But he found the ready-made devices for sale were hundreds of dollars. And most books he read suggested installing a tin roof or other roofing system and collecting water that way.

He first cleaned a section of his roof's gutter and put up a makeshift plastic catch system.

That blew loose in the first big wind. After scrubbing the roof and trying again to collect water off it, Foster found the water had a brownish tint. It turned out to be tannins from the shingles and tar paper.

So he gave more thought to it, and, about a year ago, he designed his first rain collector: a 4- by 8-foot acrylic-plastic surface angled to run the water into a collection hole and into large barrels.

Portable model needed

It worked, but the large rain catcher was the size of a small back-porch roof and could collect thousands of gallons - not practical for most people. Foster set out to design a smaller rain catcher that could be moved around easily.

After several improvements to his design, he made a rain catcher that was more portable and easy to clean.

And his latest design, which he built in recent weeks, uses light clear-vinyl sheeting for its collection surface.

That makes it less expensive and even lighter to move. As with the other rain collectors, it can produce about 300 gallons of water from 30 inches of rain annually.

Foster offers three models of RainCatchers. He hopes to sell the new vinyl-sheeting variety for less than $140. One with a 16-square-foot acrylic-plastic surface sells for $158, and his largest model, which has more than 24 square feet of acrylic plastic, sells for about $50 more.

Since his wife, Wendy, set up the Web site last fall, Foster has sold two of his RainCatchers. One of the newest models with vinyl sheeting went to Elona Wong, who lives in Days Creek.

The only source of water on her property is a creek of unreliable quality. She had been buying bottled water before she saw Foster's RainCatcher.

"It just sounded like a good idea to me," Wong said. "It makes sense to get it from the sky rather than from the well or the spring."

From a recent evening's rain, her RainCatcher collected a few gallons of clear water, she said.

Since he built his first RainCatcher last year, Foster said his family has been drinking rainwater exclusively, except when their supplies ran out last summer.

This year, with several rain collectors in their yard, the Fosters plan to store enough extra so they don't have to resort to drinking their hard well water again when summer comes.

"I like the rainwater pretty well," Wendy Foster said, remarking on how much better it tastes. "I'd stick it in my washing machine if I could, but we haven't figured out a way to pipe it in."

Safety not considered an issue

But is drinking rainwater safe? Foster said he has been surprised at the skepticism he's received.

"I would say three-fourths of the people I've talked to have misconceptions about the safety of rainwater," he said.

After hitting his RainCatchers, the collected rainwater usually goes through a cloth filter before going into the collection jug. He also runs all the rainwater through a household Brita water-filter pitcher before drinking it.

The result tastes good and safe, he said, and the tests he's had done to the water seem to confirm that.

Gerald Meyer, who deals with water quality issues for the Douglas County Health Department in Roseburg, said it's "probably pretty safe" in this area to use rainwater.

"The Brita filter would take out anything organic. And that's the kind of contaminant that's most likely to be airborne."

So far Foster is not making a fortune from his invention. He and his musically talented family continue to perform around the country at churches and other venues to support themselves.

But Foster said he thinks his RainCatchers could be useful to others who live in places with bad-tasting well water and sometimes spurious electrical service.

"I have no idea what the interest is out there, but I think it could be real useful to thousands of people," he said, adding: "It's just amazing what you can do with what Mother Nature provides if you just want to try it."