One of the greatest steps forward that local communities have taken of late is the push to collect rainwater to offset your water use. It is often an easy way to help out the environment and, in the long run, simply save water. There don’t really seem to be any catches to it either. Rain falls from the sky, hits your roof and runs in to your drums or barrels or tanks.
If only it were that simple.
Notch up another one for the members of the Idiots Anonymous who have apparently been camping out in Bellingham, Washington. Apparently, rainwater doesn’t actually belong to individuals, but to the state as a whole. Therefore, all the wonderful efforts of communities to collect water are actually illegal.
Not just frowned upon, or morally unethical, or shifty – all of which water collection is not – but actually illegal, so much so that in the future such legalities could be used in a court of law.
It comes down once again to the simple fact that humanity is doomed to an ever continuing cycle of idiot and misanthropic events and situations that will, eventually, simply wear down those of us with half a brain, and leave planet Earth populated by half-wits and mimes (often the same thing).
This information is coming to us from the Bellingham Herald, who recently ran a story entitled “Does saving rainwater violate state law?” by Jennifer Langston. “We’re not going to start issuing permits for a pickle barrel in the backyard. But what if it’s four pickle barrels or a system that has 20,000 gallons of storage?” said Brian Walsh, a manager in the Department of Ecology’s water resources program.
Mr. Walsh, manager of the Department of Ecology, who the hell cares if it’s 2 million! It is rainwater you simpleton. It is wet water, falling from the clouds in the sky, on to roof’s and paddocks which may very well be decked out with enough pickle barrels to quench the thirst of a small army, like Canada’s. But unless someone is filling their aforementioned barrel from a river or other form of wet estuary, what right minded individual is going to attempt to enforce this law?
According to Langston, Seattle has obtained a citywide water-right permit, which allows for rain to be collected from most rooftops in the city. The “most” there refers to the few neighborhoods, mostly areas north of 85th street that see their stormwater empty into creeks and streams and lakes.
Just how is this stormwater making its way from Joe Bloggs’ roof and backyard out in to the streets and gutters so that it can then run into whatever lake lies at the end of it. How much rain is already soaked up by the grass that covers many a backyard? Is that grass acting illegally hogging all that water for itself?
If this law is not soon revoked, then my faith in humanity will once again drop another few notches down. And while Washington state lawmakers may not be out to please Joshua S. Hill of Melbourne, Australia, one can at least hope that they are going to try and use at least a modicum of common sense. It’d be a change, sure, but it’s a change for the better!
Update – thanks to cchiovitti who, in the comments below, alerted us to the fact that Eastern Colorado also has similar restrictions on who owns rainwater. Make sure to leave a comment if your state has decided to take a leave of absence from their senses as well.
credit: Pete Baugh at Flickr under a Creative Commons license
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
Joshua S Hill
I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, a liberal left-winger, and believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I’m a 27-year-old author and writer from Melbourne, Australia. My first book is in the "looking for an agent" phase right now while I write my second. I also review fantasy books over at Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk). I love words with a passion, both creating them and reading them.
78 Responses to Who Does Rainwater Belong To?
Click on a tab to select how you'd like to leave your comment
No need to tear all your hair out… yet. In Oregon (and I think WA as well), certain uses are exempt from the need for a water right. Included in the list of exempt uses is a volumetric (15,000 gal/day) limit for domestic uses such as lawn watering and drinking water. Small scale rainwater collection systems would fall under this provision. Any rainwater collection system in excess of this would certainly be a sight to behold and probably should be regulated in the public realm (which does own the water), as water is a scarce and precious resource. While the notion that conservation minded individuals are being discouraged from sustainability improvements is disturbing, I do not think that WA Dep’t of Ecology will be writing any tickets for individuals implementing environmentally conscious water usage improvements.
Ah, government. How necessary thou art in our lives.
I suggest you read up about the history of water in the West. Here is a little bit of information and history of water rights (talks about Colorado mostly but covers most of the Western US): http://www.waterinfo.org/colorado-water/colorado-water-rights
There’s an old saying here, that “Whiskey is for drinking, and water’s for fighting over.”
One more, and then I promise to shut up.
For those of us living in New Mexico, no need to worry, here’s the official position of the state:
“The New Mexico Office of the State Engineer supports the wise and efficient use of the state’s water resources; and, therefore, encourages the harvesting, collection and use of rainwater from residential and commercial roof surfaces for on-site landscape irrigation and other on-site domestic uses.”
http://www.ose.state.nm.us/water-info/conservation/h2o-policy.html
As a fomer Colorado resident who now lives in Washington, I have noticed that rainwater is treated differently in these two regions. In CO, rain is rare; here in WA, we sometimes have more than we know what to do with. Laws against collecting rainwater in CO make a certain amount of sense: five of the nations largest rivers start in the CO Rocky Mountains. If every citizen were to keep his/her rainfall, then the water cycle in the state would be broken and dozens of other states would suffer. This article says that water rights only apply to aquifers and rivers, but one must wonder where that water originates in the first place.
I believe just as much as the next guy in personal liberty, but we must also consider the common good in our governmental decisions. I agree that a wholesale ban is not effective or desireable, but we must find a happy medium.
I’ve been thinking about this and I probably should clarify what I mean. No water is destroyed by storing it in a cistern. If you then use that water for local irrigation, all you are doing is changing the timing of when that water hits the ground. Now, there is a separate case (which is not the focus of the article) where some entity collects water, and then transports it elsewhere. This is damaging, as it prevents the water from recharging the local water table. Luckily for us, it is pretty easy to differentiate between these two cases. But, in most cases, the law does not, that’s why these laws are… dumb.
There’s an old saying in the West:
Whiskey’s for drinkin’, water’s for fightin’ over!
What if a citizen demands that the city come get their rain water off their car before it starts to leave water spots?
There is a difference between 2 barrels and 20,000 barrels–even in states like Ohio. If you buy up a property and collect vast amounts of rainwater, you’re seriously impacting ground water levels. This could diminish the amount of water, over a period of time, that you have avaialble in your houses’ wells, it could divert water away from rivers, lakes, and streams. More importantly, it could impact wetlands–which act as natural pollution filters and controls for many ecosystems.
The environment is an open community. If you don’t think you have an impact on the world, you’re mistaken.
But hey, ignore what the ECOLOGIST says. Ignore what “ecology” means. +1 for knee-jerk reactions.
I think one other person has mentioned this, but it bears repeating… What happens when rain falls on my roof? It collects, runs off and ends up on the ground, where much of it evaporates, and the rest soaks in. What happens when I save some of that rain water? During the rainy season, a little less evaporates or goes into the ground, then during the dry season I empty out my cistern, and much of it evaporates and the rest goes into the ground. I’m not robbing poor agribiz or some huge desert metroplex of the water they need to live, in fact, all I’m doing is extending the rainy season. And, really, I’m not even doing that since on my property, the area I can collect water from is maybe 5% of the total area. Water collection for local, personal use changes NOTHING. Now, commercial collection for distribution is another matter, but the law ought to be able to distinguish those two cases.
Aloha… I live on the Big Island of Hawaii. Almost all of the rural areas (which is the majority of the island) uses catchment to catch rain water. By law the catchment needs to be a minimum size (I believe 8000 gallons) for fire-fighter support if your house catches on fire. I don’t believe there is an upper limit to size for catchment though there are restrictions on where it can be placed on your property.
All of the water in my house – 100%, comes from rain (we are one of the wettest places in the world).
However, I was surprised to recently find out that in the cities, it is indeed illegal to have catchment, though it doesn’t appear to be widely enforced. The only reason I can think (since rain is plentiful here) is it would cut into the revenues of the city water department.
Personally, I love rain water. I’m on the East side of the island and there is nothing between me and California for 2500 miles. The ocean scrubs the air and the water that falls is very clean and extremely soft (as opposed to hard).
“on to roof’s and paddocks”
Please save the red-billed plural roof apostrophe from abuse and overuse.
WOW. And Previously I thought American’s Were none to bright to begin with and now this. I am just amazed. Really Rain water. you have got to be kidding me. I’m glad I live in canada
In Manatee County, Fl it is not illegal. In fact, the county has a Rain Barrel purchase program to encourage people to collect rainfall.
Who Does Rainwater Belong To? | Deliggit.com…
\r\nOne of the greatest steps forward that local communities have taken is the push to…
Didn’t anyone see the movie 3:10 to Yuma? The reason that the main character had it so bad was that his water had been diverted by someone up creek -his cattle were dying due to someone ‘collecting rain water’ for their own devises. Anyways, I know it is fiction, but there are reasons that these laws exist, and they are not ‘always’ moronic.
The funny thing is, the same people who complain about wanting to ‘save water in barrels for personal use’ are also often the same people who want to restore salmon habitat in Washington state. It’s funny, most of the runoff from these houses ends up in streams and creeks that are Salmon breeding habitat, without the water there would be nowhere for the Salmon to spawn. Low water levels in streams can have a huge impact on the success of a spawning season for local salmon- I had worked for a Washington Conservation Corp unit restoring Salmon habitat, so I’m not just talking out of my ass here -most yuppie environmentalists are hypocrites and don’t see the big picture. The truth is that a lot of water rights laws in Washington in the last 30 years or so have been passed to help environmental causes as well as traditional agricultural concerns.
There are actually people who try to think about the big picture, sometimes what we want to do on a small scale has unforeseen implications for the broader good. This is one of those situations where in some places the laws make sense -however there are many water rights laws that need to be reviewed, especially the large amount of water being traded as a commodity among people trying to make a quick buck. Water is the lifeblood of the agricultural system of the United States, without it our economy would crash and burn.
To this resident of the recently flooded midwest, it seems like a great idea for individuals to harvest rainwater, even 20,000 gallons. Too many metro areas are just too efficient at channeling all of their rainwater to storm sewers, then to the river, adding to the flooding problem. If people caught this water, they would be doing areas (even those idiots that want to charge you for it) downriver a favor, right?
So if the state owns all the rain, then they should be on the hook for all damage caused by floods. No one should have to buy insurance to protect themselves against the State’s rain.
My problem lies in the fact that even if EVERY building in all of Albuquerque collected the rain water from their roofs and saved it, what percentage is that of total rain water that fell from the sky? I’m guessing 5%, MAYBE. It’s probably closer to around 2%, and that’s if EVERY SINGLE MOTHER LOVIN’ BUILDING. collected rainwater. Truth be told, an estimate of 50% of buildings doing this by the year 2020 sounds absurd to me. All the rain that falls on roads, parking lots, lawns, parks, etc… would still be going to the aquifers for the farmers. I doubt that collecting 1-2% of the rainwater that falls from the sky would significantly effect the aquifers of farmers.
when the world bank privatized water in the cities of el alto and Cochabamba in Bolivia. they made it illegal to gather rain water and then preceded to hike up the water rates until the people had no choice but to riot and protest.
Hmm, so that means that if I leave an expensive silk blouse outside and it is rained upon, I can sue the state for damages? You own it, it damaged my property.
This makes me think of the movie Idiocracy.
Texas exempts rainwater systems from sales tax and some cities offer rebates on the cost of the system. There’s also a law preventing HOA’s from restricting the systems. A quick search might help you get a system installed, if it’s allowed in your area.
If the government ownes the water, wouldn’t you be able to sue them for waste disposal on your lawn on a rainy day?
Dumb laws….
I can understand that the city needs the rain to go into the ground. Obviously if massive amounts of people were collecting rainwater and just leaving it to languish in the barrels or shipping it off to another state, the effect on the city would be a drought. Maybe that’s what the idiots who drafted this law were thinking, but apparently they didn’t think about what the people actually do with the rainwater they collect. The few people I know who collect it use it on their own property, mostly for watering plants. So the water cycle isn’t really interrupted at all. So I don’t see the point of this inane law.
Seems to me the places in the West with water issues stem from the fact that people are trying to farm in areas where they really shouldn’t. Man’s artificial attempt to bring water into the dessert is the cause of the fighting over water.
One pickle barrel will not make a difference. Four pickle barrels will not make any difference either. But 2 million pickle barrels? Yes it will make a hell of a difference.
Rain water constitutes a major portion of groundwater that is drawn up from wells and is supplied to populated areas as drinking water and for other water requirements. There are landlocked lakes that get water not from rivers or streams but from rain water seeping into the ground. 2 million water barrels might not be a regular guy’s rain water reserve.
But consider this, what if a corporation buys a huge (I mean HUGE) tract of land, and installs rain water harvesting systems over the entire land, and uses the water for it own commercial purposes… The ground water table in my opinion will dry off very fast. And then the wells feeding off this underwater table go dry, and following which the population goes dry as well… The huge tract of land might appear ‘stupid’ to some people, it would have to be too large to make substantial damage to the under water table, but what if a number of companies or corporations buy lands, which together amount to be very large?
The laws might sound very stupid at first glance, and rain water harvesting should be promoted and encouraged even more, but long term effects and all scenarios, good and bad, should be considered before passing laws, and judgements……
So if the state owns the rainwater can you sue for flood damage? Or perhaps send them the bill for new gutters?
So, while driving through one of these ‘we own the rain’ towns listening to the latest hit single, “Who Owns the Rain?”, I am in some manner injured because of the rain, who exactly do I get to sue for rain damages?
If those cities ant to “own” water falling from the sky that’s great!
Wait until they get my bill for water collection and distribution services. I also screen my gutters, so I’m probably also going to institute an advanced-technology filtering system fee.
And there’s also the damage that thousands (millions, billions?) of raindrops causes on my roof (damage deposit), not to mention “their” rain knocks down leaves and branches from MY trees.
And there’s a cleaning fee (from aforementioned downed leaves and limbs) and let’s not forget the cost of pain and suffering and humiliation when “their” rain gets me wet (WITH NO NOTICE!!!)
This could be a sweet deal. I can hardly wait for this idea to catch on.
EASTERN COLORADO: Yes, I’ve lived there (Akron, Greeley, Las Animas) and other parts of the state, so I understand how Byzantine Colo. water laws are. I suggest that you ignore them because no one is stupid enough to go after their water rights from your rain barrels. I suggest that you file a “wind rights” claim as fast as you can, so you can pocket some of that money blowing by on the way to those huge wind mills.
David – What the? are you insane? how can collecting water from rain prevent others from collecting water from rain?
“OH NOES, THE DEVELOPERS ARE STEALING ALL THE RAINWATER, WHATEVER SHALL WE DO” is a stupid mentality
Also, if the main concern is that, why not just make it illegal to collect water within 30 meters of those acquieas because as i see it, those laws are actually hurting people and is making extra revenues for the water companies, which probably bribed the local government to have that law so they can have more money. Get over that silly thinking that collecting some water will mean your collecting all of it.
If that law ever came into play in england, something is indeed very wrong with this world filled with idiots, corrupt politicians and people that abuse the system at the cost of thousands of others.
Peace
CorruptSoul
What bearing does this have on flood damage? If this water belongs to you, come get it the heck out of my basement!
How utterly bonkers. They’ll be charging you for air next.
So if rain water comes down at such a rate as to flood your property, can you sue the state for damages (well their ‘property’ DID damage yours)?
You have GOT to be kidding me. Screw these whine baby losers. Just for that, I am going to setup a vast rainwater collection system to use for my irrigation.
JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
So if the state claims ownership of the rain, what happens if the rain creates flooding and destroys private property? Does that mean that the owner of the private property can sue the state demanding that their property be repaired / replaced?
It brings up an interesting issue.
If they claim ownership dont they have to claim responsibility as well?
hmm if the rain belongs to the state could you sue the state for eg getting my washing wet because I left it on the line too long
So that makes the state responsible for flood damage since they “own” the rain water? What about solar energy? Do they own the Sun too?
ahem. To whom
does rainwater
belong?
:p
I guess someone could argue that collecting the water prevents rivers and lakes from being replenished, possibly causing harm to the environment around them. I could see this happening if people went to the extreme and started hoarding thousands of gallons of water that they really don’t need. However, if someone collects 1,000 gallons a month and uses 1,000 gallons a month, that is 1,000 fewer gallons that has to be pumped out of the ground or collected from a river, sanitized, and piped to their house. It’s all going to end up down the drain anyway.
In central Florida we pay the city for storm water runoff at a cost of $5.00 per month, so we pay the city for the rain that falls on our property. At least there’s no one telling us what we can do with the water.
Rain falling on your property should be yours. Maybe other rules should apply for large estates and farming.
Ok… I’m from Germany and as you know we have some weird stuff going on here sometimes… but this tops everything
So really, when it floods in those areas where the rainwater is owned by someone the rainwater owners are liable for damages…
The world never ceases to amaze me. I suppose that along this line of logic, we will all be paying for the sun rays that actually strike our solar panels, as the government will likely be the owner of the rays. People seem to forget that governments are designed to serve the people and not the other way around.
Best of luck to the New Mexican farmers. So many of our rights were sold off long ago to bigger cities far downstream. The rest were snapped up as investments or buy speculators.
Ah, that is what they are trying to prevent around here in Northern New Mexico. Hopefully they learned from others’ mistakes!
New Mexico has the same, and it is not quite so simple. These laws are in effect to stop developers and builders from diverting the water to their developments from the farmers, who have depended on their acquiea to water their crops. So if the water falls from the sky, goes into the acquieas to be delivered to the farmers, but the water is “stolen” before it gets there, guess what? No food, no crops, no water for the animals. It may seem archaic, but it is not moronic or without reason. And while you might think it is stupid, the people who depend on that water to be delivered to their farms (naturally, not be city water like bigger towns) do not think it is stupid. If you are using the rain to water your garden, that is one thing. But diverting it to bathe in or wash your car is another…
Well, it’s a mess in Colorado because *most* of our farmers do not own thier water rights either. So many older farms sold off their original rights to the developers, so now they have to pay for how ever much they are “allowed” and when the aquifers start going down, the farms’ supplies are cut off. If all of the water was going to grow my food, I wouldn’t complain, but it really does irk me that something as basic as rainwater has been turned in to a commodity to make large companies more money.
I live in Eastern Colorado and it is also against the law for us to collect rainwater. The water-rights laws are very intricate and strict here. Technically, any rain that falls on our property belongs to the owners of the rights to the water which would naturally flow away from us. It’s a mess. Truly.