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Alabama Pays 75% Back for Rain Gardens Through Rain Ready Alabama

by Stephen
A backyard rain garden with native grasses and flowering perennials in a red-clay Alabama suburban yard, with a shallow basin catching runoff from a downspout.

The short version

  • Rain Ready Alabama reimburses up to 75% of the cost of a rain garden, bioretention area, bioswale, or permeable pavement project, with no published dollar cap for this category (eng.auburn.edu).
  • Eligibility is restricted to ADEM-designated impaired watersheds with an approved management plan, checked through an interactive map, not a fixed city list.
  • The process runs Interest Form, then Application, then Implementation, then a Reimbursement Form. Work started before approval is not reimbursed.
  • Funding is limited and awarded first-come, first-served, so applying early improves your odds.

Rain Ready Alabama, run by the Auburn University Stormwater Research Facility with ADEM Section 319 funding, reimburses up to 75% of the cost of a rain garden, bioretention area, bioswale, or permeable pavement project on a residential property. There is no published dollar cap for this category, but the program only reaches properties inside specific ADEM-designated watersheds, so the first step is checking whether your address qualifies.

Key takeaways

  • Rain Ready Alabama reimburses up to 75% of the cost of a rain garden, bioretention area, bioswale, or permeable pavement, with no published maximum dollar amount for this category (eng.auburn.edu).
  • Your property has to fall inside an ADEM-designated impaired watershed with an approved management plan. There is no fixed city list. Eligibility is checked through an interactive map on the program page.
  • The process runs in four steps: an Interest Form, a full Application, Implementation, and a Reimbursement Form. You need approval before you start work.
  • Funding is limited and awarded first-come, first-served, so an early application improves your odds.

How Rain Ready Alabama works

The program is administered by the Auburn University Stormwater Research Facility with funding from ADEM's Section 319 Nonpoint Source grant, which targets water-quality improvements in specific impaired watersheds rather than the whole state. For the rain garden, bioretention, bioswale, and permeable pavement category, the official program page states you can be reimbursed for up to 75% of project costs, with no separate dollar ceiling published for that category. Two other lines under the same program, streambank stabilization and septic pump-out, do carry their own explicit caps ($15,000 and $500), so those figures are not this category's limit.

Because funding comes from a nonpoint-source grant, it runs out. The program describes awards as first-come, first-served, so applying as soon as you confirm your eligibility matters more here than with a fixed annual budget program.

Checking if your property qualifies

Rain Ready Alabama is not open statewide by address alone. Eligibility depends on whether your property sits inside one of ADEM's designated impaired watersheds that has an approved watershed management plan. The program does not publish a static list of eligible cities or zip codes. Instead, it provides an interactive eligibility map you check before applying. If your property falls outside a covered watershed, this specific program will not reimburse your project, even if the work itself qualifies under the rain garden or bioretention category.

The application steps

The process has four stages: an initial Interest Form, a full Application, the Implementation of the approved practice, and a Reimbursement Form submitted after the work is done. Pre-approval matters. Work started before your application is approved is not eligible for reimbursement, so confirm your watershed eligibility and get your application approved before hiring a contractor or breaking ground.

See the Alabama rebates page for the current application link and eligibility map.