Colorado House votes to end unique ban on rain barrels

The Colorado House has voted to end Colorado’s only-in-the-nation ban on backyard rain barrels.

The bill allows homeowners to collect up to 110 gallons in rain barrels.

Colorado’s rain-barrel ban is little known and widely flouted, with rain barrels for sale at many home-gardening stores and commonly used by home gardeners.

But the barrels technically violate Colorado water law, which says that people don’t own the water that runs on or through their property. They can use the water, but they can’t keep it.

Colorado’s law banning rain barrels was amended in 2009 to allow use by people with their own wells. But the change didn’t apply to municipal water users.

The House approved the rain barrel bill 45-20, sending it to the Senate.