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We wrote about rain barrel's a few years ago in our post "Start collecting free water", but the city of West Palm Beach, FL is offering something better: free water and a free rain barrel!

The City of West Palm Beach Public Utilities Department is pleased to offer a FREE pilot program for rain barrels and cisterns for City of West Palm Beach residential water customers. Applications will be accepted through September 12. A lottery drawing will be done per Commission District and for Palm Beach and South Palm Beach and winners will be notified before October 1st. Lottery winners will complete a workshop that will address proper installation and use of a rain barrel or cistern and general water conservation techniques.

Please see the Rain Barrel Application attached for detailed program information and to apply! Please make sure you meet the eligibility requirements and can comply with the program requirements before applying. Applications can be submitted by saving the completed application to your computer and attaching to an email to sustainability@wpb.org or mailed.

I would love to see the economic impact from the city's point of view of how free rain barrels reduce the impact on water demand and waste-water processing over a 20 year time horizon.

But not only is the City of West Palm Beach going to save water, they're also going to reduce air pollution from coal fired power plants!  Processing water requires significant amounts of energy, see Scientific American's great article titled, How Saving Energy Means Conserving Water in U.S. West.

This truly looks like a sustainability win/win!  Why isn't your city doing more for sustainability?  I would call your city council and find out.