Rain water harvesting regulation

We get lots of political posts here, particularly people complaining about “big government” “trying to control rain water”.

Please, keep in mind,  “we the people” are the “big government” “We” can change laws, peacefully. Secondly, there are no State governments in the U.S. that specifically prohibit rain water harvesting. I’ve done the research and there have been posts here by others documenting the legality of rain water harvesting. That said, if you have credible documentation regarding a state law, or a particular county’s law, or an HOA (Home Owners Association) that specifically prohibits rain water harvesting then please, include a link to the source and the text of the law; and we’ll gladly approve your post. There may very well be HOA’s (Home Owners Associations), and, city and/or county governments that prohibit rain barrels / and or rain water harvesting. If you live in an area like that; get together with your neighbors, and have the county and or city laws changed. If you signed an HOA agreement, you’re just out of luck, you’ll need a good lawyer. An HOA is not “big government”. HOA’s are non-governmental organizations. There are limitations, however, on rain water harvesting. In most cases these limitations are not unreasonable, unless you want to have your own private lake in your back yard. There are darn good reasons for water laws, and there are absolutely ridiculous reasons based only on greed, and/or total ignorance. Obviously, in most cases, having several rain barrels, and perhaps a few 1000 gallons of water properly stored, will have virtually no effect on a neighbor’s access to water.

One of the issues that comes up repeatedly is the idea that: “I can do anything I want to on my property and nobody should be able to stop me”, and if I want to build a small lake, and fill it with rain water that should not be anybody’s business except mine. Another common idea is: “rain belongs to no one and falls from the sky, and if it falls on my property it should all be mine”. In a perfect world, that might be true. This is not a perfect world. Ok, this gets really political. “Regulation” is absolutely necessary, because any thing you do on “your” property will, in one way or another, influence your neighbor. Its all about the extent of influence.

Please, please; if you must rant about the political situation regarding rain water harvesting, and have no credible source to cite, don’t post your opinion here. Find a political blog. There are hundreds of pages on this blog, and the last thing people need to do is search through a bunch of political rants looking for information and documentation on rain water harvesting techniques. 

 

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1 Response to Rain water harvesting regulation

  1. Ron Pickle says:

    You are so right, make complete sense, though rain water harvesting is great, specially in the places with the history of water shortages but in case of a community it must be the decision of all the people living there or should be done in a way that the water accumulated does not cause problems for others.

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