Colorado measure to allow rooftop rain barrels fails

Colorado’s only-in-the-nation ban on backyard rain barrels is sticking around for another year.

The state Senate moved Tuesday to reject a bill to allow homeowners to use up to two 55-gallon rain barrels. The maneuver was a late-evening vote to delay the bill, meaning it won’t make it to the governor’s desk before lawmakers conclude work for the year.

The state House previously passed the bill, and it had bipartisan support in the Senate, too. But other Republicans opposed the measure as a dangerous precedent.

Colorado’s rain-barrel ban is little known and widely flouted. But the barrels violate Colorado water law, which says that people can use but not keep water that runs on or through their property.