Rainwater Illegal to Collect in Oregon

As absurd as that sounds, I wonder if people had the same thoughts when the income tax was introduced? "A fee to work? What's next? A fee on rainwater?"

 

Evidently even WA has some of these laws:

"...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."
http://www.naturalnews.com/029286_rainwater_collection_water.html

I'd be in trouble if I lived out there. My well went dry during the drought of 1988, and after a significant amount of research I opted to build an 11,000 gallon cistern that collects rainwater from my house. Works like a charm, we basically live like 'city people'. The key is having one large enough to store enough water to get you through extended dry spells (like we've had this year).

Are cisterns commonly in use out west?

 

No doubt I will take flak for this...

The article says, "... Harrington constructed dams to block a tributary to the Big Butte, which Medford uses for its water supply."

Constructing dams across trubutaries is more than simply "collecting rain water".

 

Prior-Appropriation Water Rights

"a system of allocating water rights from a water source that is markedly different from riparian water rights. Water law in the western United States generally follows the appropriation doctrine. . . .the general principle is that water rights are unconnected to land ownership, and can be sold or mortgaged like other property. The first person to use a quantity of water from a water source for a beneficial use has the right to continue to use that quantity of water for that purpose. Subsequent users can use the remaining water for their own beneficial purposes provided that they do not impinge on the rights of previous users."

 

The western states have been fighting over water rights for 100 or more years. The laws are very specific but generally ignored in trivial matters.

In WA it is illegal to collect the rain water off your roof in some areas.

A friend owns vineyard with water rights. If he doesn't use his allotment every year he can lose it.

 

Wow, one big cistern:

".....In 1927..... the City of Houston built its first underground drinking-water reservoir - a concrete holding tank roughly the size of one and half football fields on Sabine Street, near Buffalo Bayou. But after decades of service, the reservoir sprang a leak that couldn't be found, much less stopped. So the reservoir was drained, and for years it sat unused: just an odd hill topped with hatches behind a Public Works building....."

http://www.chron.com/life/gray/article/Gray-Buffalo-Bayou-s-dark-secret-2736594.php#photo-2183012 (includes photos)

 

Hank, sounds like it depends on where you live and what you're using it for. Washington also technically considers government the owners of rain.

http://daily.sightline.org/2011/07/14/legalizing-it-your-rain-barrel/

 

I wonder if cisterns is included as illegal collection of rain water. All the water used by my mom and dad ... by all of us when I was a kid came from a cistern filled by rain water from the roof of the house.

Next Oregon may tax air claiming the state owns all the air.

 

Yes, in some places it is illegal to collect the water coming off your roof.

 

I guess we and a lot of other people in the area where I grew up would go very thirsty. This was in the Shenandoah Valley and no one had water from a utility. Everyone either had a cistern or a spring and a few had a well. There are still folks there who have only cisterns.

Thinking of a spring I guess we could have used a spring on the farm ... but it was a pretty long walk.

 

Stock tanks to gather runoff dot the landscape in Texas. Without them, livestock would suffer in dry weather.

It's a ridiculous law.

 

True enough, but for comparison purposes:

That section of Oregon averages almost 19" of rain annually.

Amarillo, TX averages 19".

Yet stock tanks to collect rainwater runoff are not only allowed , but encouraged around Amarillo.