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323 Comments
- inactive, on 04/23/2009, -1/+274> what is it exactly that you purchase when you buy land?
A perpetual commitment to pay property taxes. - Berkana, on 04/23/2009, -6/+243Making rain barrels illegal is ridiculous; the water normally ends up in the storm drains and gets contaminated with crap, and goes to waste. Whoever passed that ridiculous law must want to leave no good deed unpunished.
- jehan60188, on 04/23/2009, -4/+200wow
so, you don't have rights to the minerals under your land
you don't have rights to the water above
what is it exactly that you purchase when you buy land?
This is the land of the free? - Aquinas315, on 04/23/2009, -4/+143This is probably due to those ridiculous pact they have out in the southwest so that states like AZ and NM can get water even though they're deserts. Honestly folks, if you want to have water, don't build your house in the ***** desert. Problem solved.
- mjk340, on 04/22/2009, -3/+107Lawmakers have a drought of ideas when it comes to revenue generation. Their judgments are clouded by greed. Articles like this can help precipitate change.
- Nishnabotna, on 04/23/2009, -2/+90You don't buy land anymore, you only rent it.
Don't forget about eminent domain. - rodley, on 04/23/2009, -4/+82I dont own that little strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street either but I still have to mow it!
- inactive, on 04/23/2009, -6/+83Hey, law makers: If I own a piece of land, what meager rain I get (in this ***** hole in Texas that produces its own high pressure system I'm sure...) belongs to me. You can either accept that I will use this to irrigate my garden, or you can provide me the water to do so. Since we seem to be having droughts and water shortages, I doubt very seriously you hold much water in this argument. We can let it evaporate and go to waste, or we can use it efficiently. If you are going to play red-tape dick bureaucracy, go do it over something that matters.
Also, get the ***** off my land before I start shooting your ass. If you want to play dick bureaucracy, either cut my taxes or pay a partial stake in my land.
Signed,
Angry Redneck Gun-toting Texan Farmer - dazparkour, on 04/23/2009, -3/+70Drought, clouded, precipitate - three chances to get the pun. 3.
- audiblesilence, on 04/23/2009, -3/+57"The strippers own the rain"
Signed,
Pacman Jones - mksmothers, on 04/23/2009, -2/+51Personally, I'd hide the barrels and refuse to let anyone on my land without a court order.
- inactive, on 04/23/2009, -1/+47"Hello, is this the government?"
"Yes"
"Please come get your water out of my basement. Thanks" - seanstuart, on 04/23/2009, -2/+46"But if everyone in Denver captured rain, he says, that would upset the state's 150-year-old water-allocation system."
Then there is no better indication that this "system" of allocation is flawed and needs to be re-worked. Besides, it doesn't seem to make sense. If people are collecting water for their lawn, then they will only be collecting what they're using. It's not like these home-owners are hoarding tons of water in underground caches - Dune style. Whatever they don't use will simply run back into the ground. And therefore, they would be using no more water than they already do from the tap, leaving the same amount for agriculture, etc. The real difference here is the ability of the water utility to charge you for this water. - Pilot85, on 04/23/2009, -0/+39Ultra WOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHHH
- FreckleEars, on 04/23/2009, -1/+39The issue here is if people collect say 35% of the rainwater that hits their property, (about the size of a house roof) over a 1000sqkm city, that's a good bit of water. Normally, rainwater hits your roof, drains off in the gutters, and into an underground pipe. Water that hits your lawn and seeps down the concrete walls will end up in a corrugated drainage pipe that is meant to divert water from damaging your home foundation. This water goes into a series of concrete pipes and engineered waterways that have VERY little loss.
If everyone in the city takes 35% of their water and cycles it into lawns, the plants use the water and the water becomes locked away in the plant, to be absorbed again by evaporation. This water does NOT enter the water system that the engineers have based their calculations on. My technical thesis in Civil Engineering was on Hydroelectric micro-projects. When these were based in an urban area, the flow rate of urban developments ends up being 95%. So 95% of the water is expected to flow away and into the engineered water system. Forests absorb around 60-80% of the water; urban areas 5%.
If a watershed contains 50% urban area, and EVERYONE decides they want to remove 30% more water from the system, they will essentially cause the engineered water system do decrease in flow by as much as 15%. That sounds like very little, but water velocity and flow rate can determine water height. In the desert case of the south-west US, EVERY system is specifically designed to operate at marginally small variances. Some water expresses may actually run natural to the system so that 15% less water means that the noted section will receive NO WATER.
I fully understand the governments position on this matter. When we engineers design the systems for water dispersion (such as in Egypt), designs are based on calculations based on given values. People taking water for their own non-normal usage messes with these given values.
When one of every 100 or so houses takes rainwater, it isn't too bad. 0.15% less water is acceptable. 15% however, is not. That is very dangerous. It is possible that there could be a drought in certain farm water divisions or no water at all. There could be millions lost in crops and thousands of other people downstream, without water.
If a mass amount of people want to consume more than the normal amount of water by alternative design means, it is withing the rights of the government to intervene. They have spent millions and billions designing a water system that functions based on a specific calculated values.
To that note, the watersheds that are along the Colorado River's etc are very LARGE. Very little of this land is urbanized. However, everyone could take water for their own purpose, and it could make a large difference. I do know that deserts run off is not the same as a forest. It is very possible that an area in a watershed that is 5% urban provides 50% of the water.
Here is a solution... these people who want more water for grass and trees etc, USE LESS WATER. and get rid of some grass. GRASS DOES NOT BELONG IN A DESERT!
/friendly neighborhood civil engineer - Nishnabotna, on 04/23/2009, -4/+42COMMON SENSE, *****; DO YOU SPEAK IT?
- serif69, on 04/23/2009, -1/+38I think this might be the first time in the history of digg that an angry redneck gun-toting Texan is going to end up with positive diggs. Good points, all of those.
- DOCNM, on 04/23/2009, -1/+35Also, what is the total surface of private collection compared to the total land? Does it really have such a massive impact (also considering that a given fraction will evantually go back when the collected water is used)?
- Dumbledorito, on 04/23/2009, -2/+35I don't see a problem with this, so long as they take responsibility if their rain floods my basement or house.
Further, their rain is making my grass grow. I expect them to come by and remedy this state of affairs (they can choose electric or gas mowers, as I'm only concerned with results). - forcedfx, on 04/23/2009, -0/+32And shovel the sidewalk.
- DOCNM, on 04/23/2009, -8/+38Exclusive (but limited) usage rights of the surface. Not really that hard to figure out.
- nedzeve, on 04/23/2009, -3/+30In some cultures, they believe that nobody owns the land, rather it belongs to all of us.
- inactive, on 04/23/2009, -2/+26its all about them showing you who is boss and who is the serf.
- chesterogilvie, on 04/23/2009, -0/+24What would be wrong with that?
- Taiyoryu, on 04/23/2009, -0/+23I live in Colorado. I think the laws are lame, even if they're grandfathered in. The laws were authored at a different time with different needs and priorities.
That said, the reason holders of water rights are enforcing the law is because cities and urban centers already secured water rights. If home and business owners start collecting rain water, they're essentially double dipping having access to the municipal water as well as the water that falls on their land.
This clash over water rights is a perfect example of unforeseen and unintended consequences of a law. - jba68, on 04/23/2009, -0/+23Alot of these laws date back to Range wars. For instance a situation could occur where a landowner that had a piece of property above another,relative to a water way) would block the water flow to devalue the land below his. Its just old laws being brought back to the forefront that havent been taken off the books.
- Bermygoon, on 04/23/2009, -0/+22
Factoid of the Day, I live in Bermuda we collect all our drinking water and other water from our roofs.
http://www.bermuda-online.org/architecture.htm - jba68, on 04/23/2009, -1/+23Frequently mineral rights are sold separate from the land rights, as well as water rights. At least in Tx they are split off.
You could sell a parcel of land, retain the mineral rights in case of oil being found there.... - jayhawk88, on 04/23/2009, -0/+22"The Colorado Department of Natural Resources estimates that 86 percent of water deliveries go to agriculture, which is already stressed by dwindling supplies."
Plus the farming going on in places that have no earthly business growing arable crops. Go drive through eastern Colorado/western Kansas sometime and marvel at the crops being grown almost exclusively on aquifer and river water, in areas that could technically be considered desert most years, based on the amount of rainfall the areas get. - buckrogers1965, on 04/23/2009, -0/+21I find it unlikely that the government has more guns than the citizens of Texas have.
- jba68, on 04/23/2009, -2/+22@ AnalogAssassin
no dummy, he was speaking of a time before the word socialism had be coined as a political philosophy.
He was speaking of cultures such as the American Indian that travelled the land's nomadically as the seasons changed.... - SpinningHead, on 04/23/2009, -0/+20I tried that. They put a giant umbrella over my land.
- 1x253, on 04/23/2009, -1/+20you beat me to it. That is exactly correct.
- wrillo, on 04/23/2009, -1/+20Yeah right! You'd be a criminal for turning your basement into a water collection system!
- 8FoldPath, on 04/23/2009, -3/+21What a silly law. Next thing you know, local govt's will make people pay taxes to open their blinds for the sun.
- Dumbledorito, on 04/23/2009, -1/+19It's still being settled, but the UN refuses to get involved in the increasingly bloody conflict between the "Care Bears" and the "My Little Ponys."
- mmoore5, on 04/23/2009, -2/+20All your barrelz are belong to us.
- TheSkunkMonkey, on 04/23/2009, -2/+19This may be the land of the free, but the land is not free.
We have given our government too much power over our lives and I fear we've passed the point of being able to take it back peacefully. - ntopaz, on 04/23/2009, -0/+16This post is actually informative, unlike most other comments here which are full of whining and complaints about the government.
- rmxz, on 04/23/2009, -0/+16Bolivia had riots over similar. It's amazing what we put up with.
PBS has an interesting story about it called "Leasing the Rain"
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/bolivia/ ...
And more info here:
http://takomagardener.typepad.com/tg/2008/01/where ...
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6670 - nahsrocketeer75, on 04/22/2009, -25/+41Just goes to show again that sometimes the law can be all wet.
- bipolarruledout, on 04/23/2009, -0/+16They should have to remove at least one law for every law they enact at this point.... that might make people interested in government again.
- Suricou, on 04/23/2009, -2/+17I can't understand why rainwater collection has any impact. The water gets collected from the rain, is used to water plants (or more likely just overflows) and runs off, just as it would were it not collected. The only impact I see from collection is to perhaps even out the flow a little.
- Kitakaze, on 04/23/2009, -1/+15Sorry to go slightly off the thread here but in Bolivia, Bechtel (a US company) privatized part of their water supply and promptly tripled the rates, leaving many unable to afford clean water. So they started using communal wells, as well as collecting rainwater — both were banned. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivia)
- glenneroo, on 04/23/2009, -1/+15which is why laws need to be REVIEWED every 10-50 years and by default if nobody looks at them, they are chucked out.
- WBWB, on 04/23/2009, -0/+14Okay, so if people in Denver don't capture rainwater, then where do they get their water? From the tap, right? And if they do capture rainwater and use it, they will be using less water from the tap. There's the problem. Rain barrels upset the delicate balance of municipalities selling water!
- shauncorleone, on 04/23/2009, -3/+17If this isn't evidence of the government's mentality that you use resources with their permission, then I'm not sure you'll ever come around.
- FreckleEars, on 04/23/2009, -0/+13In land contracts in most all urban areas, you own about 2m below the ground level, and about 10m above the land. That is it. It is enough space to build a home that is 4 levels high with a half level underground. That is what you bought. You pay taxes on that land and live within the property boundaries, and adhere to a specific standard of construction.
If there is oil underneath you, you do not own it. If a river runs adjacent to you, you cannot use it. You cannot build a 40m high apartment building. The more space you need, the more you pay. You cannot build right on the edge of your property. You cannot cover your property in large trees. You cannot build multiple homes on one property. These are all things that have been decided over time and made into laws.
Anyone who thinks this article does not understand engineering and urban planning. Do you all know why all sub-divisions look the same? It is because they have to. In order for mass calculations on water usage/run off/traffic/pollution/services/sewage disposal/garbage collection/electricity etc etc etc everything has to be UNIFORM. When a waterway was designed 50 years ago, it was based on everyone letting 95% of the water run off their property. Catching it and removing it from the equation means some engineered system will fail or not work right.
You do not have the rights to anything extra unless you pay more and get special permits. Every municipality has laws that are set up to adapt to the local area. It is possible that urban areas provide some desert watersheds with 50% of the water, even if the urban area is as little as 10% of the land in the watershed. - audiblesilence, on 04/23/2009, -0/+13Do they speak English in What?
- DOCNM, on 04/23/2009, -2/+15makes sense. It's not my fault if I wasn't born when land was allocated.
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