Bartow County, GA Landscaping Rules: Rainwater Harvesting (2026)

Bartow County does not ban or separately license rainwater harvesting; instead its water conservation ordinance carves the practice out of a stricter rule. , outside of declared drought emergencies. § 12-5-7, and subsection (f)(2) places capture and reuse of cooling system condensate or stormwater in compliance with local ordinances and state guidelines on that exempt list, alongside irrigation of personal food gardens, drip irrigation, hand watering with an automatic shutoff, and use of water drawn from a private well or surface water on the same property.

In practice, that means a resident who collects rooftop runoff or condensate in a rain barrel or cistern and reuses it for landscaping is not bound by the twice-daily watering window that otherwise governs unincorporated Bartow County, so long as the collection and reuse otherwise comply with applicable local ordinances and state guidelines. The exemption sits inside the water conservation article administered by the county water and sewer department superintendent, with concurrence of the county commissioner, and it survives even the county's emergency drought restrictions under subsection (e), which govern only new landscaping, pressure washing, and portable fire hydrant meters.

There is no separate county reporting form, tank-size limit, or backflow-specific rule for harvested rainwater in this code; the exemption is the entirety of what the ordinance says about the practice.