City Council approved a long-awaited ordinance Monday that permits Atlanta residents to install and operate systems that treat rainwater for use inside the home.

Although the potable rainwater ordinance took nearly a year’s worth of negotiations, revisions and false starts, Atlanta still is ahead of much of the nation when it comes to ordinances allowing such systems. A handful of other U.S. jurisdictions permit potable rainwater systems via state law, but Atlanta appears to be the first to create a permitting system through a city ordinance. (Potable rainwater systems are far more popular outside the U.S., particularly in Australia and Germany, however.)

The Atlanta ordinance, which Mayor Kasim Reed is expected to sign, is nearly identical to a version passed last week by Council’s Utilities Committee. Here’s the final version.

After the ordinance was approved, the city employee most active in developing the ordinance announced in an e-mail that she’s leaving her job in the city’s Office of Sustainability. Project manager Jenah Zweig will be joining her old boss, former Atlanta Sustainability Director Mandy Mahoney, at the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance, where Zweig said she’ll serve as a policy manager.

“I am looking forward to this new adventure and getting to do hands on energy policy work,” Zweig wrote. “It’s a very exciting opportunity.”