Anaheim, CA Landscaping Rules: Rainwater Harvesting (2026)

4 of Division 6 of the Water Code, naming it the Rainwater Capture Act of 2012 in Section 10570 and making it effective January 1, 2013. Section 10571 lays out the Legislature's findings: growing amounts of impervious surface across California have increased stormwater runoff into storm sewers and the ocean while cutting the water that recharges groundwater aquifers, and a warming climate is shifting precipitation from mountain snowpack toward rain that current reservoirs, built to capture snowmelt, cannot store. The Legislature found that properly captured rainwater and stormwater can help meet local water demand and reduce dependence on imported supplies.

3. Section 10574, the operative rule for any Anaheim homeowner, states plainly that using rainwater collected from rooftops does not require a water right permit under Section 1201, removing the state permitting hurdle that otherwise applies to appropriating water. Section 10572 keeps the Act narrow: it does not alter or impair any existing water right, does not change water rights law, does not let a landscape contractor perform work that requires a professional engineer's license under the Business and Professions Code, and does not limit the California Building Standards Commission's authority over standards for rain barrel and rainwater capture systems, which is why an Anaheim installation still has to meet the plumbing code even though it needs no state water-right permit.