Posted on 07/27/2010 11:07:09 AM PDT by GSWarrior
(NaturalNews) Many of the freedoms we enjoy here in the U.S. are quickly eroding as the nation transforms from the land of the free into the land of the enslaved, but what I'm about to share with you takes the assault on our freedoms to a whole new level. You may not be aware of this, but many Western states, including Utah, Washington and Colorado, have long outlawed individuals from collecting rainwater on their own properties because, according to officials, that rain belongs to someone else.
As bizarre as it sounds, laws restricting property owners from "diverting" water that falls on their own homes and land have been on the books for quite some time in many Western states. Only recently, as droughts and renewed interest in water conservation methods have become more common, have individuals and business owners started butting heads with law enforcement over the practice of collecting rainwater for personal use.
Check out this YouTube video of a news report out of Salt Lake City, Utah, about the issue. It's illegal in Utah to divert rainwater without a valid water right, and Mark Miller of Mark Miller Toyota, found this out the hard way.
After constructing a large rainwater collection system at his new dealership to use for washing new cars, Miller found out that the project was actually an "unlawful diversion of rainwater." Even though it makes logical conservation sense to collect rainwater for this type of use since rain is scarce in Utah, it's still considered a violation of water rights which apparently belong exclusively to Utah's various government bodies.
"Utah's the second driest state in the nation. Our laws probably ought to catch up with that," explained Miller in response to the state's ridiculous rainwater collection ban.
Salt Lake City officials worked out a compromise with Miller and are now permitting him to use "their" rainwater, but the fact that individuals like Miller don't actually own the rainwater that falls on their property is a true indicator of what little freedom we actually have here in the U.S. (Access to the rainwater that falls on your own property seems to be a basic right, wouldn't you agree?)
Outlawing rainwater collection in other states
Utah isn't the only state with rainwater collection bans, either. Colorado and Washington also have rainwater collection restrictions that limit the free use of rainwater, but these restrictions vary among different areas of the states and legislators have passed some laws to help ease the restrictions.
In Colorado, two new laws were recently passed that exempt certain small-scale rainwater collection systems, like the kind people might install on their homes, from collection restrictions.
Prior to the passage of these laws, Douglas County, Colorado, conducted a study on how rainwater collection affects aquifer and groundwater supplies. The study revealed that letting people collect rainwater on their properties actually reduces demand from water facilities and improves conservation.
Personally, I don't think a study was even necessary to come to this obvious conclusion. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that using rainwater instead of tap water is a smart and useful way to conserve this valuable resource, especially in areas like the West where drought is a major concern.
Additionally, the study revealed that only about three percent of Douglas County's precipitation ended up in the streams and rivers that are supposedly being robbed from by rainwater collectors. The other 97 percent either evaporated or seeped into the ground to be used by plants.
This hints at why bureaucrats can't really use the argument that collecting rainwater prevents that water from getting to where it was intended to go. So little of it actually makes it to the final destination that virtually every household could collect many rain barrels worth of rainwater and it would have practically no effect on the amount that ends up in streams and rivers.
It's all about control, really
As long as people remain unaware and uninformed about important issues, the government will continue to chip away at the freedoms we enjoy. The only reason these water restrictions are finally starting to change for the better is because people started to notice and they worked to do something to reverse the law.
Even though these laws restricting water collection have been on the books for more than 100 years in some cases, they're slowly being reversed thanks to efforts by citizens who have decided that enough is enough.
Because if we can't even freely collect the rain that falls all around us, then what, exactly, can we freely do? The rainwater issue highlights a serious overall problem in America today: diminishing freedom and increased government control.
Today, we've basically been reprogrammed to think that we need permission from the government to exercise our inalienable rights, when in fact the government is supposed to derive its power from us. The American Republic was designed so that government would serve the People to protect and uphold freedom and liberty. But increasingly, our own government is restricting people from their rights to engage in commonsense, fundamental actions such as collecting rainwater or buying raw milk from the farmer next door.
Today, we are living under a government that has slowly siphoned off our freedoms, only to occasionally grant us back a few limited ones under the pretense that they're doing us a benevolent favor.
As long as people believe their rights stem from the government (and not the other way around), they will always be enslaved. And whatever rights and freedoms we think we still have will be quickly eroded by a system of bureaucratic power that seeks only to expand its control.
Because the same argument that's now being used to restrict rainwater collection could, of course, be used to declare that you have no right to the air you breathe, either. After all, governments could declare that air to be somebody else's air, and then they could charge you an "air tax" or an "air royalty" and demand you pay money for every breath that keeps you alive.
Think it couldn't happen? Just give it time. The government already claims it owns your land and house, effectively. If you really think you own your home, just stop paying property taxes and see how long you still "own" it. Your county or city will seize it and then sell it to pay off your "tax debt." That proves who really owns it in the first place... and it's not you!
How about the question of who owns your body? According to the U.S. Patent & Trademark office, U.S. corporations and universities already own 20% of your genetic code. Your own body, they claim, is partially the property of someone else.
So if they own your land, your water and your body, how long before they claim to own your air, your mind and even your soul?
Unless we stand up against this tyranny, it will creep upon us, day after day, until we find ourselves totally enslaved by a world of corporate-government collusion where everything of value is owned by powerful corporations -- all enforced at gunpoint by local law enforcement.
Growing your own food will be next.
Ping
True....don't have your rocket scientists do your geology.
It doesn't even take a hydrogeologist to point out that it might be devastating (and do irreversible damage) to use rainwater and reduce recharge in an aquifer instead of drawing tapwater that might have been lost from the watershed via surface transport anyway.
But who cares if your neighbor's house collapses from subsidence, as long as it's not yours, right?
I hope the state is prepared to pay for all damages their rainwater does to my property.
ROFLOL!!!
Bring it on....
Coming sooner than most people think or realize.
Madness. No one owns the rainwater until it falls on someone’s property. Then it belongs to the owner of the property. No government can change that, even well-meaning wackos.
These leftists HATE private property and will do anything to seize private property.
Government doesn’t OWN the rain.
Next they will claim ownership of the air.
In the 50’s and early 60’s my grandparents lived on a farm in West Texas and collected all their drinking and cooking water from a tank that collected the rain. The well water had to much gypsum in it.
Old news. Over a century old in fact, fights over water have been a part of the West from the beginning.
“Whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fightin’!”
Maybe the state should pay temporary storage fees to the property owners.
Next they will claim ownership of the air.
Yes, that is coming.
These are the kind of problems that require a government structure.
It’s government abortions that we need to fear.
I’ve heard immigrants from Russia comment that there are far more petty restrictions on everyday life in “the land of the free” than there ever were back in Russia. Thank you legislatures and trial attorneys.
I better start hoarding air before they make that illegal too.
“Growing your own food will be next.”
Already happening.
http://www.oprah.com/community/message/978558
They still do stormwater calcs with "the same flow" being the intention. Like....I can't flood my neighbor...or dry up his creek because I stopped the water.
Geez....Didn't you guys ever watch Ponderosa???
It seems to me that the argument that the rainwater belongs to someone else, is bogus. I would challenge that in court by having them identify who that someone else is, and did they expressly say to them that I can’t use it.
Or maybe just tell them that I AM someone else, so FO!
Already in the process of being done.
Oh, boo hoo. Look at your deed. You probably didn’t buy the rights to extract minerals from under your property either. Does that mean you’re not “free” anymore and America is “enslaving” you?
If you want to buy water or mineral rights with your property, you need to make sure that’s part of the transaction. If you’re too uneducated to understand how property law works, then you should recognize your ignorance and hire someone who does understand the law to help you with your transaction.
Cry me a river (and then water your plants or wash your cars with that).
Since the laws have been on the books for 100yrs, it’s pretty hard to pin this on the current administration, or Bush, or Clinton, or...
yup. Already have a start on the atmosphere. The gov’t knows people need food, water and air to survive. The sooner they control those along with energy, health care and the flow of money, the happier our rulers will be.
You have to wonder who came up with that nonsense regulation. Mr. Miller is catching rain water BEFORE it runs into the dirt and loses half its volume prior to flowing into the city’s collection system.
This is simply a way to force Mr. Miller to pay for city water. Apparently they succeeded.
That’s why people want to kill lawyers.
Too smart by half.
Better link..
Something to consider:
My late father in law was a rancher in CO. The Rio Grande crossed his property and he had right to a certain amount of water from it, but no more.
That was a valuable asset of the property. When he sold the ranch to Texans they actually bought ir for the water rights and took the water out down in Texas instead.
I guess if all the people in more populated areas collected all their rainwater, then the people with codified water rights would basically be SOL.
I’m not saying they shouldn’t have the right. I’m just pointing out it would conflict with title rights elsewhere.
More people mean less freedom.
We’re running out of room and resources. All the best places to live are overrun with people and development.
The remaining places are vast landlocked wastelands or in miserable climates (e.g., Alaska).
Of course, if we ended LEGAL immigration, we might save what little freedom and resources we have left to us.
But that won’t happen because our sick mismanged Ponzi economy depends on stuffing the country with more taxpayers and consumers.
The Food Safety Inspection Service is recommending fees to small local meat processors that start at $65,000 and could go as high as $650,000 per year.
http://www.meattradenewsdaily.co.uk/news/260710/usa___big_costs_for_small_processors.aspx
I don’t know about you but the folks that process the livestock I raise myself, can’t afford such ‘fees’.
Attention Comrades! The American Revolutionary Council remains all citizens that breathing the government’s air without proper certification and licensing is a highly illegal counter-revolutionary act against the State and its People and is punishable by death!
they are already working on that
“I would challenge that in court by having them identify who that someone else is”
And they would point you to the hundreds of ranchers down stream with codified water rights as part of their property value.
I guess they never foresaw water retention in the urban areas.
“God may send rain to the just and the unjust; but we reserve the right to discriminate who gets what rain.” — US Government
It’s an interesting problem:
“As the ancient maxim put it, cujus est solum ejus est usque ad coelum – he who owns the soil owns up to the sky. If that remained true, the new airplanes would have nowhere to fly...”
http://page99test.blogspot.com/2008/12/stuart-banners-who-owns-sky.html
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/08/swat-team.htm
SWAT Team conducts food raid in rural Ohio
December 4, 2008 (Updated December 26)
Exactly!
When my father in law sold his property to texans for the water rights, he actually retained the mineral rights.
Don't complain when your neighbor agrees with your attitude and does this to your property.
Thank you.
+++++
Yes, small collection systems are efficient and I applaud the exemption for the Douglas, since the problem is far more serious than most people realize.
+++++
As Sourcery posted several years ago: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1027183/posts
My sister actually sued (and won) her neighbor because he diverted rain water flow on his property, causing it to flow right into her foundation. Most of the problems are due to excess surface transport rather than saving the water.
I heard about these laws in the Seattle area roughly 5 years ago. I was absolutely shocked. I see the county’s position, and it is pure BS. The same thinking could be used to control every single aspect of our lives! People are pushing back.
Oh please! What is the total area of a given state, as compared to the amount that could conceivably be collected by property owners? And of the rain that falls on the ground what percentage actually makes it down to the aquifier, as opposed to running off into streams or simply evaportating. A drop in the bucket (so to speak), I'll wager. Perhaps someone with thousands of acres diverting a stream might have some minimal effect, but home water collection systems? I don't think so.
It’s illegal in Washington state, but that didn’t stop the City of Seattle from doing this in their new LEED Gold city hall. No city officials have gone to jail.
You must pave them over and divert the run-off to storm drains. Oh and you have to pay for the extra capacity that will be needed by the city.
Then I want to sue them for their rain invading my property. If you can sue someone for their dog dropping it's product on your property then you must be able to sue someone for their rain dropping it's product on your yard.
Oh, please. Yes, kill lawyers because they know more information than you do. Do you want to kill your surgeon, too, because he knows how to transplant a heart and you don’t? I mean, in the land of the free, anyone should be allowed treat themselves and expect perfect results. Same goes for any specialized area of knowledge, eh? Why do we need people who invest years of their lives studying to gain special knowledge that helps society function? Every uneducated fool should just be able to accomplish anything or else we’re all slaves. That’s it.
Too late. See Wickard v. Filburn.
“Next they will claim ownership of the air.”
They already claim that. What’s the argument for not being allowed to smoke outdoors
I was just wondering the same thing. I have a couple of lovely stock ponds(or stock tanks)on my property. Keeps the lawn green while the monthly water bill from being outrageous.
Let’s quit beating around the bush, they just want to
have something else to charge you for, it’s all about
revenue. Some day they’ll figure out a way to charge
you for breathing
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