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As clouds threatened to crack open and dump their contents on Eric Durland's Glenmont home on a recent morning, he stays relaxed and dry inside.

His rain barrel, however, could soon be hard at work.

The 55-gallon barrel acts as a giant water net, catching as much rain as possible from the sky and vigilantly delivering the water in measured doses to specific spots in the yard that Durland has chosen. The barrel then saves any leftovers deep inside its belly for later.

"It'll fill ... in a rainstorm pretty quickly," Durland said.

This, essentially, is what a rain barrel does, and environmentalists say it's a relatively effective and effortless way for a homeowner to have a direct impact on the surrounding environment.

Durland is one of 40 homeowners in the Glenmont neighborhood to try out the relatively simple barrels for the good of the Rock Creek Watershed.

In September, the nonprofit Montgomery Housing Partnership sponsored a forum with the county's Department of Environmental Protection and the youth-driven government-conservation group Montgomery County Conservation Corps to show Glenmont residents exactly how to use a rain barrel.

DEP officials rewarded residents for sitting through a long day of lectures with a free 55-gallon rain barrel to try out at their homes.

"The idea is to save as much water as possible," said Durland, who already has two rain barrels in his back yard and serves as The Greater Glenmont Civic Association's environmental chairman.

A month later, the residents who have installed their rain barrels say they like the new addition to their homes.

While the concept of a big barrel with pipes and spigots and convertors might throw some people off, the set-up's not hard, said Kris Kumaroo, the president of The Greater Glenmont Civic Association and another proud new owner of a rain barrel.

"It took me longer to get the tools out than to do the job," he said.

Kumaroo's barrel pipes water from his gutters to a compost pile in the back, creating what he calls rich "black gold" soil to use in his garden.

And the maintenance is fairly hands-off, he said.

"It's self-sufficient right now," he said, pointing to the rain barrel's pipe over the compost. "If I don't have the time to dump it out, it all goes in here, which is fine."

Gardeners in particular enjoy the benefits of a rain barrel, which steals water headed for the driveway or street and directs it toward a garden instead, Durland said. A hose can be attached to a spigot for easy watering, as long as the spot to be watered is downhill from the barrel.

The promise of lower water bills may lure some people into the rain-catching practice, but a 55-gallon barrel doesn't make much of a dent in a bill that charges people by gallons in the thousands, Durland said.

However, a Montgomery County program offers one-time rebates of up to $1,200 for a single-family house for purchasing and installing a rain barrel or other rain-saving device. The "rainscapes" rebate fund has about $75,000, given out on a first-come, first-served basis, and with 2009 as its first full year, the fund is expected to be depleted.

But Durland said the real motive for installing a barrel can be seen just down the hill from the Glenmont neighborhood, where a quiet creek bordering Wheaton High School gurgles.

About two years ago, county officials installed walls of boulders to prevent creek erosion, but it was too late: The damage from runoff had already been done, Durland said. The creek is about five feet lower than it should be (a healthy, erosion-free creek flows at almost ground level), and a large alcove much wider than the creek itself has been cut into the surrounding hills, a result of an overflow of runoff, Durland said.

The change surprised Kumaroo, who grew up in the Glenmont neighborhood.

"It was never like this when I was a kid," he said, standing over the eroded alcove in the hill. "It was higher, and it always flowed."

Durland said even more widespread destruction will occur if Glenmont residents don't start controlling their water flow now.

"Everything runs down from here," he said. "It all affects D.C., it all affects the bay, it all affects our neighbors."