Using PGBackups, add tasks for pull from a heroku app and restore to local development database.

db.rake

namespace :<MY APP NAMESPACE> do
  namespace :db do
    desc "Fetch the latest backup from heroku"
    task :fetch => [:environment] do
      app = ENV['app']
      if app.blank?
        puts "You must specify the heroku app name to get its database (use app=<appname>)"
      else
        url = `heroku pgbackups:url --app #{app}`
        db_prefix = app.gsub('-','_')
        fname = "#{db_prefix}_#{Time.now.strftime("%Y%m%d")}.postgres"
        puts "Fetching database from #{url} - dumping to file #{fname}"
        `curl -o #{fname} \"#{url}\"`
      end
    end
    
    desc "Import a dbfile into the development database on the local system"
    task :import => [:environment] do
      dbfile = ENV['dbfile']
      if dbfile.blank? || !File.exists?(dbfile)
        puts "You need to specify the database file to import with dbfile=<filename>"
      else
        `pg_restore --verbose --clean --no-acl --no-owner -h localhost -d <DEVELOPMENT DATABASE NAME> #{dbfile}`
      end
    end
    
    desc "Sanitize user data"
    task :sanitize_user_data => [:environment] do
      User.all.each do |u|
        u.password = 'monkey'
        u.save
      end
    end
  end
end