Woman is denied from using rainwater off her own roof!

Originally posted by star in a jar
If someone came up to me with a bill taxing me for breathing air, I will literally kill him/her on the spot.

Taxing rain is just as bad.


Mod Note: One Line Post – Please Review This Link.

[edit on Mon May 11 2009 by Jbird]

reply to post by Jadette

There are already several states where it's illegal to capture rainwater - colorado, utah, washington. In Idaho the state owns the water, but 'allows' rain harvesting on private property.

There's a similar problem here in New Mexico. The government here owns all mineral rights on your own property. Oil, Gold, etc., so if you find either of those, the State owns it. They haven't come up with owning rainwater yet, but I wouldn't put it past them.

This is one of the most absurd scenarios I have ever heard of. If this is a NWO test scenario to gauge how people will respond they can f===ing forget about it.

In a pinch Chemtrail water is better than no water.

What happens if one digs a well? Or, builds a cistern?

EPA was toying with the idea of charging folks a fee for polluting the water supply by allowing rain water to drain from the roofs and drive ways on their property.

Isn't that called "Sewer tax" or "Property tax".


[edit on 11-5-2009 by Siren]

In California they have "user-based" or "prior appropriation" water rights unlike most of the U.S. to the east of them, which uses Riparian water rights. Basically California's water right system reduces to "first come, first served". First right-owners are superior to those who come afterward, and you can't diminish the quality, or in this case, quantity of water available to the prior right owners.

But at the same time, California's hypocrisy "knows no bounds"...while they won't let a woman take a few barrels of stormwater that would eventually enter the waterway system, they'll damned sure let the Los Angeles basin drain the entire western half of the U.S. of water - no matter who was there first.

There is a work-around for this woman is she wants to use this rainwater and still abide by the law. If she will use it in an irrigation system that allows it to drain to the same stormwater runoff it would if she didn't catch it...she should be able to get her permit, depending on what she's using for fertilizer. If she's using manure in her organic garden, she might have a problem.

I think the whole system is stupid and unequitably applied.

[edit on 5-11-2009 by Valhall]

reply to post by Dragonlance


I believe most states do that, own the mineral rights under your property. Especially something like Uranium, a uranium lode ownership automatically goes to the government.

You only "rent" your land from Big Brother.

Montana is the only state I know of that doesn't charge a property tax, I think if they ever tried to start one the Montana Militia would have something to say about that. Times like these make you realize how important militias and gun rights are to your precious few remaining freedoms.

With all the extremely bright minds on this board, and the people screaming out that someone should do something, why are we on page 9 of this topic and there has yet to be a post containing the phone number and name of a politician or mayor for the area in which this happened? Why aren't we flooding the offices responsible for this, and alerting the media in the area, that thousands of people are expressing their outrage over these actions? As unruly as the Gov is, the media can be even more so, and is quick to jump on a story like this and run with it. Actions speak louder than words, so lets band together and start the process rolling. I know several posters have stated they are from or near the area this happened in, so provide the board with the information we need to bring this to the mainstream news and get people informed. By sitting back and just talking about it, we are already beginning to accept it as another Gov-imposed reality.

Originally posted by Gando702
Let's say she was granted the right to the water which fell on her roof and property. She starts storing it, and others catch on. Soon thousands of folks in Colorado start storing rainwater, on both sides of the Rockies.

My girlfriend works for the Utility Services Department of the city in which we live, and I asked her about this thread. She basically said one person doing it wouldn't be a big deal. However, word gets out, and since a precedent is set, everyone starts doing it. If a mere 10% of rain water from the rockies were kept privately, it would significantly deplete the supply to the colorado river. In Nevada, Arizona, and Southern California, where water is starting to become VERY scarce, this would have a VERY negative impact.

The Colorado River supplies 100% of the water where I live. It's such a concern, that homeowners can be fined if they're irrigating their lawns, and water is running into the street. In Nevada, where I live, we're already in a dire situtation when it comes to water. Every winter, there's the Rocky Watch, where we hope the snowfall in the Rockies is on the western side, so that the Colorado gets replenished.

I'm not justifying anything, I'm simply saying that when the State denies someone the ability to catch what you'd think is a resource everyone has a right to, they're not necessarily denying that person's rights to it, they might be looking out for the wellbeing of others who rely on that resource as well.

Cheers.

Lets say we protest and get legislation passed I'm afraid what Gando says is true people would abuse it. I've seen it happen in other developments residents were on the honor system as far as water usage. Some residents took advantage and started truck farms and tree farms. The development had to go to the extra expense of metering the water. These peoples water bills went from $20 a month to $40-$50. This stopped the farming but what about the other residents they enjoyed good plentiful water at a low across the board cost and these idiots ruined it for them.

I appreciate everyone's concern over the rain on my roof but if I capture it as well as everyone else what are people like Gando going to do when water stops flowing from Colorado.

I can understand this lady's need but as small business owners we know everything doesn't always go as planned often compromises must be made sometimes due to zoning laws and such one must go another way entirely. It's business you jump through the hoops and try to do the best within the system. If we change the law to accommodate her business then there's a few I'd like to change to accommodate ours. Where would it stop. I'm not saying this is a fair practice but this part of the nation is an arid area our neighbors need water.

Originally posted by Longy4eva
Haha that's genius!!! if they can refuse you the right to collect 'their rain', then file a lawsuit saying that 'their property' is constantly covering and DAMAGING her property.

Lawsuit!!!! Your property is causing rusting to my vehicles etc. If i don't have a right to use it, it has no right on my property. SCORE!!!

The next time someone's house gets flooded out they should be able to sue the 'owners' of the rain. The poor people in West Virginia could make a killing right now! WVA flood

Originally posted by Morningglory
[..] It's business you jump through the hoops and try to do the best within the system. [..]

This hoop is way off.

By the way, if she wouldn't catch the rain, would it really eventually end up in the water system? Or does most of it end up too deep in the ground to be used?

OK. Obviously this is crazy. Since the water company has established that rainwater is thier property, we have a few legal options as "victoms". If I were in this person's situation I would......

Press charges against the water company everytime it rains for trespassing. Possibly also charge them for all damages due to normal wear and tear due to water damage. Maybe even charge them for vandalism if the water runoff caused soil erosion.

I remember reading something similar to this over here in the UK years ago. Similar thing, the local Council threatened to take the person to the local Court.
I don`t think anything actually happened to the person, because all the local farmers threatened to cover their fields and stop the Councils alleged owned rain from reaching their crops. The local newspapers, if I remember correctly made such a joke of the Council that everything was dropped.
It was a long time back, so I can`t remember the exact report.
But, it is ridiculous to stop anyone using rainwater.

This is sooo not right! people should be able to harvest rain water-period. I remember an issue about this here locally last year, and I think they changed the laws a little to allow it, but what I want to know is, what if you just do it, and they find out? are their harsh penalties? or how would anyone ever find out if you just do it, and dont tell.

reply to post by dodadoom


OpenCongress website
Note the below section of the Text of S.787 as Introduced in Senate
Clean Water Restoration Act which specifically does NOT mention runoff from house roofs and even states it goes back to the Clean Water Act of 1977 and such amendments before this one:

(9) ‘ground waters’ are treated separately from ‘waters of the United States’ for purposes of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and are not considered ‘waters of the United States’ under this Act;...

(13)(A) as set forth in section 6, nothing in this Act modifies or otherwise affects the amendments made by the Clean Water Act of 1977 (Public Law 95-217; 91 Stat. 1566) to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act that exempted certain activities, such as farming, silviculture, and ranching activities, as well as agricultural stormwater discharges and return flows from oil, gas, and mining operations and irrigated agriculture, from particular permitting requirements;...

‘(25) WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES- The term ‘waters of the United States’ means all waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands, sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of Congress under the Constitution.’...

It does not talk about general runoff in subdivisions, homes, etc... roof runoff.

Sorry folks, but this is not some 21st-century eco-policy gone mad, nor is it a power grab by the state. Water rights in the west are traded separately from the land, just like oil and other mineral rights, and is done to ensure private property rights. This is all very clear when you buy property in Colorado. It's a selling point for a lot of rural and ag land - are water rights included with the land or not.

It sounds crazy, but water rights and laws/case law around them have been building for 150 years or so, for good reason. Many wars/battles have been fought over water, more than over oil or gold, for sure, at least here in Colorado.

All these arguments you're giving about owning what falls from the sky - apply them to a river flowing across your land. Just because it enters and exits your land, do you have the right to dam it up and use it for your own purposes? Keep it from those downstream? That's what people did in the 1800's, dammed up rivers and diverted into reservoirs, and starved the farmers downstream. Water rights and ownership laws evolved around these cases. Seniority of rights is very important in such cases, to prevent someone new from buying upstream and starving someone downstream who was there first.

Now think about an oil well. Oil rights can be sold separate from the land - why not water from a well? If you bought a house and had to pay for the oil (potentially) in the ground, the house would be very expensive. Same goes for the water.

And once water ownership has been separated from the land ownership, what difference does it make where the water originates from? Rain, well, or upstream?

Anyone in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, or California who disagrees with me, please, ask your state government to push to disband existing water rights and allow anyone to control any water that crosses their land in the entire country. Colorado would dam up the Colorado and Green Rivers tomorrow, and you'd all be dying of thirst with brown lawns, and your farmers would go out of business. Believe me, you don't want to change how water rights work in this country - everyone downstream from Colorado is currently benefiting great from these same laws that you say are crazy.

But Al and the Gorebal Warming nuts claim the sea level is RISING!

So we ALL need to buy a billion trillion rain barrels and keep that water from flowing back into the sea.

Connect them all to a giant hydroelectric raintricity maker.

Nuke the Moon! That dang thing is annoyingly bright late at night.

I find this amazing. Here in New Zealand this is the norm. My entire house uses nothing but rainwater. It is collected from the roof and stored in a huge concrete tank in the back yard. It is then pre-filtered, pumped through a 25 to 1 micron filter, some use UV as well. It's pretty cool that we require no water from the city. Many do get city lines put in but we have never needed one.

Originally posted by contemplator
I find this amazing. Here in New Zealand this is the norm. My entire house uses nothing but rainwater. It is collected from the roof and stored in a huge concrete tank in the back yard. It is then pre-filtered, pumped through a 25 to 1 micron filter, some use UV as well. It's pretty cool that we require no water from the city. Many do get city lines put in but we have never needed one.

Yeah always looked at living in NZ a little bit of a liability but these days the more crazy the world gets the more im happy I was born here and not somewhere else

We've still got to install the huge 15foot diameter by 8 foot tall water tank we have sitting in our driveway given the recent weather here in the Waikato it'd be full by now.

I can see where the Law might be coming from in America since some places in America are pretty damn dry with low annual rainfall, but this particular case just sounds like some one using the law to protect an economic gain.

Thing is the rainfall for me is for the benefit of all the out laying community why should a commercial farmer or some other have more rights than any other to the water, and just how much water would they loose to the handful of people that actually bother to collect the rain water. Its like fighting over crumbs in the long run.

Then again money does strange things to peoples heads. Still OPs thread sure makes me scratch my head and wonder about some parts of humanity.

[edit on 11-5-2009 by BigfootNZ]

reply to post by dodadoom

Sounds to me like this woman made the mistake in recognizing the idiots at the head of state to do the right thing in such matters. Pulling a permit to put a barrel under the gutter is just stupid. Makes me wonder what sort of world she thinks she's living in. Her actions in pulling this permit is a good indication of the programming she had already received in becoming just what they want us all to become, "sheeple".
I read all the things that OP are putting up here and think that their point of view is just another reason why the states are getting away with this BS. You don't fight the states to get what you want, you just don't recognize their BS and let them make the first move when they try to pull some # like this. That's when you get them for everything that you can. Then it's a win win situation. You get what you want and the state gets what they want. The state took care of every aspect of your life by forking over millions to you.

Well, it sucks if you live in Colorado I guess. Elsewhere it would be very encouraged. The average household wouldn't draw more than 200 gallons at a time figuring some regularity to the rain in that state. Big mistake to ask. Still, they should pursue their rights and avoid admin courts in favor of Judicial ones.

Everybody should just leave the lid off of their garbage cans.
Collect rainwater.
Lower the sea level.

Thank you.


Thank you very much.



I'll be here tomorrow night as well. See ya then!