Rebecca Nelson thought that she was helping the environment when she captured rainwater in a barrel and use it on her garden. Car dealer Mark Miller thought he was “greening” his facility with a cistern to use to wash vehicles. They were both violating the law in Utah where it is against the law to capture rain water. With California creating a “water bank,” one can imagine an expanded array of hydrocrimes, including bank robbery with intent to garden.
Boyd Clayton, the deputy state engineer, explained that citizens who capture water are depriving people with water rights: “Obviously if you use the water upstream, it won’t be there for the person to use it downstream.”
“Utah’s the second driest state in the nation. Our water laws ought to catch up with that,” Miller says.
It is hard to imagine who Col. Jack Ripper of Dr. Strangelove will be able to make his only beverage of rye and rainwater. It is not clear how pool owners fare but the law seems turn on a matter of intent. You can have a pool but not a cistern or barrel. Birdbaths are an obviously gray area.
Next time Clayton and the water police appear, Utahans can always sing out in protest:
Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head
And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed
Nothin’ seems to fit
Those raindrops are fallin’ on my head, they keep fallin’So I just did me some talkin’ to the sun
And I said I didn’t like the way he got things done
Sleepin’ on the job
Those raindrops are fallin’ on my head, they keep fallin’But there’s one thing I know
The blues they send to meet me won’t defeat me
It won’t be long till happiness steps up to greet meRaindrops keep fallin’ on my head
But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turnin’ red
Cryin’s not for me
‘Cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complainin’
Because I’m free
Nothin’s worryin’ me
For the full story, click here.
Patty C
1, September 11, 2008 at 6:21 pm
The laws are on the books, they have been there for decades, and are enforceable.
No, if they were enforceable they’d be enforcing them.
Patty C
1, September 11, 2008 at 6:21 pm
For the last time.
I was not attempting to engage in a debate
You’ve tried that one already.
And the excuse for why you lost the debate you’ve been arguing for the past 3 days is that you were “not debating”, is indeed a tactic worthy of the most Rovian amongst us.
😐
You are to be commended.
For the last time.
I was not attempting to engage in a debate.
The laws are on the books, they have been there for decades, and are enforceable.
Because you don’t agree with the laws, don’t understand the history behind them, nor can you fathom the state’s shared water interest toward the public welfare, then obviously that means that Utah Water Enforcement officers are scoundrels – for doing their jobs.
AND IF you had read the article, you would see that they do not deserve to be ‘shot on sight’ for their thoughtful handling, in this case.
Read my very first comment on the subject.
On a personal note, none of us come here for exasperation.
I am not your doctor, but you need psychiatric help.
You are own your own.
OMG, my ‘spell checker’ must be on the blink today, ahem
– my ‘household’!
A thousand pardons.
Or is this just another example of your writing stylestyle?
😀
I doubtdoubt even youyou would bebe that dumbdumb, but with youyou, who knowsknows?
As for the mysterious “househouse”, I’m betting it is another result of not looking closely enough at what you’re copying and pasting from your spell checker.
You know your spell checker, right?
😐
Its the one you swear you’re not using.
Patty C
1, September 11, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Very helpful. You must be filling in for Thingum Bob
Or, in the case of my househouse, try overlapping medical practices, a farm on the coast, and much needed vaca’ time, Sherlock.
Once more we see you calling Bob names, bragging about your work, your property, and whatever the hell a househouse is, yet mysteriously not one single point of refute.
Thus, once more, you rest my case.
seamus:
“Can’t you people limit yourselves to wasting time while at work??????”
Evening hours are most conducive to all my research and writing needs.
And btw, I’m not ‘semi-retarded’ for attempting to employ reason and expect same in return; I’m a moron.
Very helpful. You must be filling in for Thingum Bob
Or, in the case of my househouse, try overlapping medical practices, a farm on the coast, and much needed vaca’ time, Sherlock.
I debated the issue, and presented my positions, pointing out that water in my mouth, hands or stomach or on the top of my head, does not belong to namsypansy busybodies like you.
You could not refute that fact, so, you cut and pasted other peoples words, then still unable to formulate a coherent response, started up with your personal character attacks on me, and BRAGGING about your stupid school, stupid job, stupid family, stupid sex life….etc, as if ANY of that had anything to do with the topic.
It doesn’t.
Fact is the water I capture is mine, whether with my hands, or with an extension of my hands, in the form of a rain barrel.
And none of your insults or self praise changes that fact.
Patty C
1, September 11, 2008 at 11:48 am
He tries to get a rise out of educated professionals with advanced degrees, like myself and others, by devoting his days to calling US illiterate
Your position is untenable.
What you do for a living won’t change that.
Where you went to school won’t change that.
How good your sex with your husband is, won’t change that.
These are all things you constantly taut when presenting your positions that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic.
I don’t care where you work.
I don’t care who your stupid husband is.
I don’t care what stupid school you went to.
And I don’t care if you crap dandylions out of your arse on Tuesdays.
If you cannot debate a point without bloviating about how much more superior your life is to everyone elses, then clearly you just cannot debate.
Rafflaw just denounced your position, making him the 4th person who’s come in and denounced your position.
Your response?
To brag about how superior to everyone you think you are.
Wow, like a semi-retarded Algonquin Roundtable. I see a disturbing number of posts in the wee small hours of the morning. Can’t you people limit yourselves to wasting time while at work??????
Serious signs of mental illness, and/or an unpaid cable bill.
Your friend in Onan. Seamus
As usual Cro/Bartlebee likes to start fires in the hallways.
My ‘venom’ comes from being fed up with being the target of antics
– page after page of article posts in my absence here that I am reading for the first time in the last several days.
He tries to get a rise out of educated professionals with advanced degrees, like myself and others, by devoting his days to calling US illiterate, the grownups – ‘babies’, the women ‘fat ass’, and crediting people with arguments they weren’t making because HE doesn’t even know how to read!
This he calls ‘debating’.
And you ‘guys’ invite this idiocy by encouraging the
3-ring circus atmosphere.
I want to get back to intelligent Constitutional and other legal discussion – specifically with regard to the outgoing Administration
Holy Snikeys! All of this venom over a little rain. I will throw in my late opinion on this “capturing rain” issue. I am shocked that any State or Federal government has the alleged authority to outlaw what I do with water that falls on my ground. Even if I collect it temporarily in a rain barrel, it eventually goes into the water table when I do use it on my garden. This governmental argument sounds a bit like how did my rain end up on your lawn. Even Col Ripper would agree that our precious fluids are ours, not the governments. Once the water hits the ground, if I am diverting it, that would be a horse of another color.
Patty C
1, September 10, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Thingum has a hair across his butt
😐
I have to admit, I can see you being an expert on this topic.
Patty C
1, September 10, 2008 at 5:41 pm
This is not a debate site
I think it’s supposed to be.
😐
But I’ll agree it’s not when you’re here.
Patty C
1, September 10, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I wasn’t debating.
😐
I’d have to agree.
“The fact is the idea of a law prohibiting someone from capturing a little of the rain over their own property, is ludicrious and plays no serious role in water conservation.”
****
No. The ‘fact’ is there are laws on the books which are completely valid, enforceable, and longstanding-since the mid 70’s. How you feel about them is your opinion which counts for nothing.
I wasn’t debating. This is not a debate site and you are not a worth debating.
Thingum has a hair across his butt and he needs someone like you to team up with. He enjoys being a jerk – like you.
I’m not intimidated.
When are you leaving, again, to set up the ‘debate’ site?
I want to mark my calendar.
——-
1976
Fight for Water in West Grows; Battle for Water, Vital to Dry Parts of Sunbelt, Intensifies in West
By GRACE LICHTENSTEIN Special to The New York Times
August 22, 1976, Sunday
Page 1, 2228 words
” DENVER, Aug. 21 The battle over water in the semiarid West, a battle that began when white men first started permanent settlements here, is fast reaching a critical stage that will determine the future of the dry sections of the region…”
As for posting other peoples arguments to sell yours, that just constitutes a weak debater who can’t forumlate their own positions and instead just lazily cut and paste someone elses.
The fact is the idea of a law prohibiting someone from capturing a little of the rain over their own property, is ludicrious and plays no serious role in water conservation.
Targeting large scale water capture efforts is one thing, but telling people they can’t put a bird bath in their back yard, or put out a rain barrel is foolishness, and only a fool would support such a law.
Patty C
1, September 10, 2008 at 9:48 am
BTW, I get paid a lot of money these days for slinging ‘crap’.
😐
You mean the crap you sling in here or are you just very fast at changing bedpans?