Sen. Scott Jenkins wants to make it legal for homeowners to collect and store rainwater without having to purchase a water right through the state.

Jenkins, R-Plain City, told the State Water Development Commission in a meeting Tuesday that he intends to sponsor a bill in the upcoming legislative session to make residential rainwater collecting a legal right.

Jenkins decided Tuesday that his bill would limit the amount of rainwater that a resident could collect to a 2,500-gallon storage unit that a person could keep refilling throughout the year.

"It turns out there's quite an industry behind this," Jenkins said of rainwater collection systems. "In the future, we'll see more of this."

Jenkins said he began thinking about residential rainwater collection this past summer, after Utah car dealer Mark Miller tried collecting rain runoff in a cistern for use at his dealership in Salt Lake City. Deputy state engineer Boyd Clayton said Tuesday that Miller is working out a deal with Salt Lake City to acquire a water right to legally continue the practice.

Jenkins did not have a draft of his bill ready for the commission meeting, leaving it unclear whether it would impose restrictions on collection methods. Clayton said commercial water users would still be required to purchase or acquire a right to store and use rainwater runoff.

Clayton said Jenkins' bill would be somewhat symbolic, partly because the state does not currently tackle a costly process to prove a person has been illegally collecting rainwater and then to prosecute them. Many people, he noted, understand that Utah water law prohibits personal collection of runoff because the water does not belong to them, requiring instead a water right before collection can legally begin.

Meanwhile, Utah Division of Water Rights regional engineer Kurt Vest told the commission that Utah may need a regional groundwater management plan to make sure there's enough water to go around in southern Utah. More water is being consumed annually than is being recharged in the Escalante, Cedar and Parowan valleys in southern Utah, he said. Those valleys drain into the Great Basin via the Beaver River.

The Hamblin, Pine and Wah Wah valleys also drain into the same basin, but very little groundwater has been developed, or appropriated, in those valleys, Vest said. His proposal is for a regional plan to close the three undeveloped valleys to appropriating water rights and possibly tap into those areas for use in the other three valleys where resources have been over-appropriated.

The commission did not take action on the management proposal, vowing instead to further discuss possible policy changes for water rights.

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