Rainwater Rebate Campaign for City of San Diego

Help us advocate for a Rainwater Rebate Program that helps San Diego enhance its resilience in the face of drought!

The City of San Diego is taking comments about its rainwater rebate program.  At this time they are only rebating barrels smaller than 200 gallons.  But you can get up to $400 at $1/gallon for smaller containers.  This encourages purchasing many small barrels, which wastes plastic, money, and space.  Since you can get more efficient rainwater storage by getting larger cisterns, and they take up less space than many small containers, many of you have opted for larger cisterns but have not benefited from the City’s rebate program.

We would like to encourage you to write to Mariah Mills at the City of San Diego: mmills@sandiego.gov to let her know your thoughts on this.   Please feel free to add any comments about how to make the program more easy to navigate or access.

Here’s a sample letter:

Dear Mariah, 

We had our xxxx gallon rainwater tank installed on Date.  We chose this because we wanted to maximize our saved potential water and divert the maximum amount of water from the City storm drains.  Because our yard is small, we don’t have enough space to soak in a ¾” event from our roof (list the amount of gallons if you can).  But this rainwater tank can hold up to (Ex: 4” of rain) from our roof, allowing us to store additional water for the dry times to feed our (veggie garden).  

We think the City of San Diego’s rebate program should be enhanced to encourage large storage so residents can be part of the water supply solution and so we can encourage our neighbors to be better stewards of our waterways by reducing the amount of runoff going into the stormdrains.

Larger storage containers take up less space in small urban yards than many small containers and cost significantly less than many small barrels.  Not to mention the fact that small barrels have shorter lifespans and more maintenance than a properly installed rainwater tank.  Look at this comparison: 

 

Storage  (3” rain =  2814 gal)	Tank	Rain Barrel  (Ivy)	Trash Cans
Capacity	500 gal	50 gal	32 gal
# Containers	1	10	15
Total Gallons	500	500	500
Cost /unit	$950	$150	$35
Total Cost (not including installation)	$950	$1500	$525
Area taken up/unit	48” diameter	22.5” top diameter	24.5” top length with handles
Total Area taken up	12.5 sq ft	110 sq ft	196 sq ft

 

I hope the City will consider better rebate options for large rainwater storage to ensure our communities have access to important strategies for coping with water supply issues and to support keeping our waterways clean.

Thank you!

Name

Phone

Email Address

Water Customer Number