Update; March 21, 2014:
We have found that nearly every state in the U.S. allows rain water harvesting by individual home owners. Only a few states have severe restrictions. This could all change if citizens do not stay involved in government business. Anyone with enough money and influence can cause laws to be changed. Hopefully , the information on this blog will help people keep themselves informed with the truth about what is going on in their state governments. If rain water harvesting really did become illegal, as some people want to make it seem, it would be catastrophic; but for now that is only a looming threat. Let’s keep it that way, in fact, if all states had a law like Texas, we would not have such a looming threat. (Texas has a law that actually makes it illegal to prevent anyone from harvesting rain water.)
We have been researching this intensely since February of 2013. So far after spending over 150 hours actually looking through the state government websites of 48 states, and looking at the research of others on all 50 states in the U.S. it has become obvious that Colorado is the only state where the practice of roof water harvesting, rain water harvesting or rain barrel use is illegal according to state government for some people. Colorado is has strict regulations that are changing (some people in Colorado are forbidden by law from collecting rain water- those without a well, or water rights), and Ohio has strict regulations. Otherwise we have not found any other state government that makes rain water harvesting by individuals against the law for all citizens in all cases.
On the 48 websites we looked at, we did find that there are nearly incomprehensible regulations on water sources other than rain in most states. We also have found that any homeowners’ association, any county, or any city may have laws in addition to state laws regarding rain water harvesting (with the exception of Texas, where the right to harvest rain water is guaranteed by law.)