Man Arrested For Collecting Rainwater On His Property
« on: 2012-08-09 19:16:09 »
It isn't quite what it seems but is still disturbing that the law would be applied like this. Some appreciation of scale is needed when applying this law. Personal use verses Industrial use ?
Cheers
Fritz
Man Arrested For Collecting Rainwater On His Property
Guy Harrington was sentenced to 30 days in jail and forced to a pay a $1,500 fine for collecting rainwater.
When it rains, it pours. A man in Oregon has been sentenced to 30 days in jail for collecting rainwater on his property. The government determined he had “illegal reservoirs.”
Guy Harrington of rural Eagle Point, Ore., collects rainwater and snow runoff in three locations on his property. Harrington believes a 1925 law is behind the ruckus. The law established that the city of Medford would hold the rights to all the sources of water in the Big Butte Creek watershed and tributaries.
But Harrington thinks the courts are taking the law of out context.
“It didn’t mention anything about rainwater and it didn’t mention anything about snow melt and it didn’t mention anything about diffused water, but yet now, they’re trying to expand that to include that rain water and they’re using me as the goat to do it,” argued Harrington.
Harrington has three ponds on his 170 acres. According to Oregon laws, one must obtain a permit in order to have a reservoir. Harrington applied for permits and was granted permits in 2003, but a State court reversed that decision.
“They issued me my permits. I had my permits in hand and they retracted them just arbitrarily, basically. They took them back and said ‘No, you can’t have them,’ so I’ve been fighting it ever since,” said Harrington.
The real issue is this: Is the water that Harrington collects public water? Oregon says “yes.” The State believes Harrington is diverting and damming water that would otherwise run into public streams.
But Harrington thinks it is just another example of government overstepping its bounds.
“The government is bullying,” he said. “They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies. So, we as Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll prevail.”
Collecting rainwater now illegal in many states as Big Government claims ownership over our water
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.
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