You don't own the rain ! ?

this caught my eye......illegal to collect rainwater

unbelievable, how can it be called 'land of the free' ? - people are getting arrested

Preposterous! Tells you how much common sense some politicians are.

At least here, we are still encouraged to collect rain water...local gov't even offers subsidy if you do.

After some research, I believe it is due to this river compact...and how they thought restricting rainwater collection would help maintain the river flow. I believe some States & local gov't realized the reasoning is flawed and are changing the laws now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact

marcus watts wrote:

unbelievable, how can it be called 'land of the free' ?

Yes, it is.

But not really surprising actually.

Its always easy to find idiotic laws to poke fun at.

Water law out west is very complicated. It is VERY arid in much off the area, and water is an important commodity. Many parts of the west get less than 10 inches of rain a year, and rely on snow melt from distant mountains for all their water needs -- agricultural, domestic and industriual. Water is piped hundreds of miles from areas of relative plenty to areas of need -- usually urban areas. Los Angeles would have difficulty existing if it weren't for water pumped over the mountains and through the desert from the Colorado River in Arizona. Arizona is perpetually peeved over that and the issue is always in the courts somewhere -- or so it seems.

Little wars were fought between states and counties over the allocation and misallocation of water rights. People died in those back in the 1800s and into the early 1900s, and the courts are still pretty jammed in some areas with arguments about who owns what and who has to give up what.

Here in the eastern US, we pretty much adopted British water law, and that doesn't lead to those kinds of problems. But then, water is much more readily available here in the east and there's enough to go around.

Usually. Much of the east is in severe drought right now, and we're all being encourage to "harvest" the water that falls on our roofs.

Marcus,

when we went independent of you guys on August 31st, 1962, similiar laws were left to us on rainwater and power generation.
So it isn't only the Americans, but also the English/British, in on the "strange laws".
Later.
Khaimraj

In Scotland, harvesting of both rainwater and greywater is actively encouraged as a green initiative as long as it's not used for commercial purposes and as long as systems comply with British Standards and if appropriate the Scottish Water Byelaws. We just got a leaflet in from Scottish Water telling us all about it. And with almost comedic timing its arrival through the post coincided with a peal of thunder and torrential rain.

the actual story that caught my eye was a guy being taken to jail for continuing to collect rain water from his property,so yes I can see it is taken very seriously. Fionas Scottish example is more realistic - use it in a non commercial way if you want to, but sell it - no that is taking the pi**.

I have been reading up on the wildlife and countryside act (UK) recently and it is similar with plants - you can collect non endangered trees with permission but it is also illegal to profit from the collection or use any wild species for commercial gain...........that opens a can of worms if you like buying Uk collected wild material, but it will only become a problem when people see it abused by blatant jokers i think - buyer beware though?

All water is borrowed really, it cant actually go anywhere after all - and i live in SW England which probably has the highest water rates possible on the planet as we pay to keep the seas and beaches clean as well, but here also grey water usage is encouraged if you want to re-use rainwater. In the Uk though we have to pay a charge for rainwater draining off our property if it goes down water company pipes and into their sewers.....that feels really really wrong

Kaimraj...the British dont have laws putting you in jail for collecting rain water in barrels, so i'm not sure how they were left to you guys ? in the article i posted these are state laws in the USA, not inherited from the Brits to my knowledge

the things we have to put up with hey?

marcus

They dont want you to drink water that hasnt got added goodies

I just read the article Marcus - OMG!

It sounds shocking, but when you consider what happened to the once great Colorado river, it does seem to make some sense to regulate the prevention of rainwater entering the groundwater system. Imagine if all the commercial enterprises that used water in one town were to collect and store vast amounts of rainwater, towns further down stream might find themselves with no water at all. In a sense, the rain that falls doesn't belong to the owner of the land upon which it falls, but to the nation as a whole. Or not.

You've certainly got a point there Treedwarfer.

But a lot of the water shortage in some regions of America is caused by the use of air-conditioning I heard: when the construction of passive housing becomes the norm, there'll be fewer problems with water in Western countries at least. It will take time, but that's the only reasonable path, what's more it will save a lot of fossil fuels that are becoming scarce.

And in some countries, more people should be aware of global warming, which is not the case in many (big) places yet...