Who Does Rainwater Belong To?
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.
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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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Who Does Rainwater Belong To? | Deliggit.com…
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In Manatee County, Fl it is not illegal. In fact, the county has a Rain Barrel purchase program to encourage people to collect rainfall.
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
“on to roof’s and paddocks”
Please save the red-billed plural roof apostrophe from abuse and overuse.
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).