Comments on: Who Owns the Rain?

By: Ralph

Ralph — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 13:41:30 +0000

What about sunshine? Is that next on the list of things I have a “right” to? Oxygen?

By: Ralph

Ralph — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 13:39:17 +0000

I should ask the state whether I have the “right” or if it is “legal” to gather something that falls from the sky? That will be the day.

By: We are Live in 3,2,1 GO Again. CaffiNation 422 | The CaffiNation Podcast

We are Live in 3,2,1 GO Again. CaffiNation 422 | The CaffiNation Podcast — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 04:41:01 +0000

[...] Although it might be illegal to collect the rain… seriously [...]

By: We are Live in 3,2,1 GO Again. CaffiNation 422 | The CaffiNation Podcast

We are Live in 3,2,1 GO Again. CaffiNation 422 | The CaffiNation Podcast — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 04:41:01 +0000

[...] Although it might be illegal to collect the rain… seriously [...]

By: Ceg

Ceg — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:43:50 +0000

FYI, Washington changed their policy in October 2009. According to the Dept of Ecology, rainwater harvesting is now legal. check out the article:

http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/hq/rwh.html

By: Uncle B

Uncle B — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 12:13:10 +0000

Yankee Doodle running out of water? Innocent proletariat! Peon in the first degree! First oil, now water, what next? Are the Factory Farms that feed us secure, or are they just corporate entities, ready to fold corporate name-tags, bankrupt,set workers free to unemployment, write off assets to cost of doing business, and vanish, to shift capital to better investments elsewhere? Remember: GM (China) flourishes today in Shanghai and returns a 30 % profit this year on the Shanghai market, in “Yuan” to New York, and all investors! GM (U.S.) meanwhile, unloads the liabilities on public funding, burns public money, and goes south to bankruptcy! Goddamn smart piece of business for the guys at the top, unloading a “White Elephant” onto U.S. public funds, taxpayers dollars,public money, and moving their own capital to higher profits in non-depreciating “Yuan” with huge dividends paid out annually! Somehow, China is a net food exporter to the U.S. nowadays, as the U.S. southern states dry up, and better ROI’s are offered on the Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong markets! Nobody will ever invest in the U.S. for noble, romantic, patriotic reasons, so the U.S.A. will remain,”King of the ROI” til the last farm is foreclosed, last river polluted, last lake dryed out to irrigation, and last field salted to death for a buck, a fast buck! We don’t love our country, we love money, McMansions and V-8 cars, extravagant clothes, grossly unhealthy foods, and debauchery in drunkenness, drugs and illicit sex, in that order! Corporatism and ROI were the death-knell of all the forefathers saw as good in this country! America, once the beautiful British virgin of the Atlantic, is now a disgraced diseased old whore, sinking in her own filth, and it only took 200 years to do it! Even the socialism of a government run GM can’t change our reality! Far too little, far too late, and unacceptable by the ROI worshipers, like Universal Medical care, will fall away to the delight of the dividend collector, as his very own country sinks into the sea, a polluted, sewage smeared, sickness infested, pus sore, on the face of the earth, threatening all other more advanced societies with war and menacing world peace and progress, a Godless, drug infested, polluting, scab on the earth! Your farmland, in the richest country in the world drying up, poisoned by ROI, and the “Bottom Line” in some great ledger, in a dusty financier’s office in New York, the occupant fed from China’s great resources, driving a British built Bentley, wearing the best from Europe, eating Russian caviar, drinking finest French wines! He doesn’t give a good goddamn about your plight, or that of the Country! He concentrates on World politics, ROI, dividends, exchange rates, and other Shylock and Swindler’s tools! Not your farming ass! it is worth nothing, same as the land you stand on, or anything noble or patriotic you have in mind – He uses these childish notions as part of his tool-chest to unravel your very soul and take what he likes best – dividends, in cash please!

By: Rainwater Harvesting Legalized in Colorado : EcoLocalizer

Rainwater Harvesting Legalized in Colorado : EcoLocalizer — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:01:57 +0000

[...] year, there were three Western states where it was illegal to have a rain barrel in your back yard: Washington, Utah, and Colorado. A change to local laws means we can scratch the latter off the [...]

By: Becky Striepe

Becky Striepe — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:45:43 +0000

Thank you for the great info! It’s nice to get a first hand perspective.

By: tech44

tech44 — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:48:12 +0000

the Utah legislative session is out for this year. The bill that would allow water storage entered committee, but went no further. There is a lot of support for this bill, and seems very commonsense to me in that by allowing storage it avoids conflict with existing law which does not allow “diverting the waters”.

The reason behind this is that some water right holders depend on the water from seasonal creeks that are only active for brief periods of the year (aka spring) and theoretically stopping the rain from entering the stream by “diverting” the water takes away water from the downstream rights holder.

But this is very nonsensical within city limits where everything is paved and gutters everywhere (and eventually all storm water ends up in the Jordan River/Great Salt Lake anyway). A local news station covered a story about how a local car dealership decided to go green with a large cistern that collected rain runoff from their rather large car dealership roof to run their carwash. The water department swooped in and shut things down because he was “diverting” the waters. Needless to say, when the story ran there was public outrage over that. That’s when a local (and smart) legislator Scott Jenkins decided to introduce his water storage bill.

While the need for water conservation is acute because we live in a desert (and our population is growing but the water supply is not), there are increasing numbers that see the water department as a bunch of water Nazis – which I kind of wonder about myself, with increasing water fees and their large bureaucracy that they are supporting that stamps out private interests. But I digress.

Everybody is discovering xeriscaping and rock gardens, which is a good thing, inmho. If you live in Salt Lake City, I encourage you to support Scott Jenkin’s common sense, eco friendly bill.

By: Becky Striepe

Becky Striepe — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:05:32 +0000

That FAQ definitely rationalizes the law. I don’t feel like it really justifies things, though. They are treating water as a commodity, something that I consider a fundamental problem.