The City of Seattle, through Seattle Public Utilities, has been offering incentives in the way of rebates for rainwater collection since 2010. The Rain Wise program promotes rain gardens and cistern use for landscaping to offset storm water runoff. While not available in all areas of Seattle, it is growing in popularity in the Ballard and other areas.This is the first incentive program for rainwater harvesting in Seattle with hopes of expanding its area. Diverting rainwater from the roof to a rain garden or cisterns for irrigation helps reduce demand on the city’s sewer system, which finds itself increasingly overwhelmed, resulting in sewage spills in the Puget Sound.  Read more from Sustainable Seattle.

Other cities in the US are finding this to be a good solution to the increasing demands on their sewer systems and water supplies as well. With the droughts that are being experienced in Texas, the city of San Marcos is offering rebates to homeowners up to $5,000 for installing rainwater catchment systems and commercial buildings up to $2,000.

As demands increase on our centralized water and sewage systems, rainwater collection incentives will become more popular throughout Seattle and other cities in the US.