Scenes from an Oregon prison.
“So what are you in here for, Mr Man with the Snake Tattoo on His Face?”
“I killed my entire family with a samurai sword I picked up at a gun show, then cleaned and ate them before refinishing the couch and loveseat with their skins. You?”
“Collected rainwater on my property. Stole it right out from under the noses of the state and used it to wash off my muddy work boots. So if you’re thinking you’re some kind of tough guy, you should know that I’d do it again in a heartbeat. So don’t be fucking around with me!”
~finis~
Recall, this is the same state that for years couldn’t figure out a way to stop a deranged and dangerous stalker who leveled threats at children and who harassed everyone from elected officials to out of state lawyers.
Guess bullying is a lot easier when the target is someone who you don’t much fear significant blowback from.
If you don’t own the rain and snow that fall on your land, then isn’t every farmer “stealing water”? YOU DIDN’T MAKE THAT RAIN!
“Property is theft” indeed.
That’ll lern ’em to always use gubbmint approved rain barrels!
Isn’t Oregon the state where some dude got busted for pissing in a reservoir?
In fairness to Oregon (which has its share of uniquely stupid laws), Western state water rights laws tend to be like that.
Historical artifact of scarcity in the West, as opposed to the East.
(Short version: You collect that rainwater (lacking a pre-existing appropriation right)? Someone downstream is getting shorted of a right that they did have appropriated.
Good idea? Possibly not.
But longstanding law in the West, and utterly unrelated to “you didn’t make that” or “it’s the State’s qua the State’s” – the idea is that it’s not so much the State’s, as someone else’s because they have an existing water right to it.
That “all water in Oregon is Public Water” is simply how prior appropriation is enforced – if it was, at the core, “yours”, from the start, there’d be no way to enforce someone else’s downstream appropriation right.
And thus we’d be back to rancher-vs-farmer water wars, which are part of the reason the West is prior-appropriation territory.)
I understand that, Sigivald, but what I don’t understand is how having a permit to collect that rainwater from a government bureaucrat makes it suddenly okay.
Doesn’t it rain all the time in Oregon? I knew a guy back in the day who went to college in Portland and said it was the only time in his life that he wore out a raincoat. So what’s the problem?
Depends which side of the Sierras you’re on.
Significant climate difference between Oregon east vs west of the Cascades, IIRC.
Sierras, Cascades, whatever.
Whatever indeed. I’ve never been there and I intend to keep it that way.
So if I get this straight, it’s illegal to collect rain water but legal to collect illegal votes. Is there a sane part of the west coast left?
OT, but this Crazy Uncle Patrick column Rush was talking about earlier seems topical.
“Just ask for me, the guy with the snake on his face!”
— John Candy, SCTV
The rainwater part collected from his own land seems insane, but if he is diverting snow melt from beyond his property to reservoirs on his property, then aren’t there down stream owners of that water who are losing out? Like most western states, Oregon follows prior appropriation. Whoever gets the water right first has the right to it.
So if downstream owners have the rights, the upstream guy does not have the right to cut it off.
What bothers me is the criminal part. If the state is right, go sue him in civil court and find out. It is the coercive nature of using criminal statutes for something that (at best) looks like something that can be resolved with damages or an injunction that seems wrong.
Jeff nails it with the bullying part. Government officials love the sexual power of being able to throw you in jail. It sooths the fear of those in government that someone is doing better than they are.
At least in the areas I’ve looked at, the requirement is that you cannot permanently alter the volume of water leaving your property at a given point. So, you could dam that creek, but once your holding pond is full that creek better flow at the same volume.
But, then, I’ve never looked at land anywhere that has permanent water problems.
The ranchers around here coat their cow ponds with Bentonite so that they will hold water without seepage into the soil. The cattle wade in the ponds to drink and to cool off. Their feet tamp the Bentonite down and make it do its job.
Water is scarce here and we don’t have any whacky water laws like those in Oregon.
We’ve got 10% of Earth’s fresh water, but we have to share with Ontario and the cheese-eaters. Still, it’s nice to know we’ll never be thirsty.
That’s great. Be thankful you don’t live in Georgia where they tried to steal Tennessee’s water from them to solve their lack of urban planning when Atlanta sprawled.
Occupy Lake Erie!
Here in Austin we have these useless trees called Mountain Juniper. Locally people call them cedar, but they aren’t. They don’t give much shade, a lot of people are allergic to them, and they consume a whole lots of ground water. They also tend to dry out and become a fire hazard. We should get rid of these trees and our water table would be much higher for farmers. But we don’t.
Just ask what CA and AZ want to do with UT’s Lake Powell.
Go ahead: ask.
ok asked
Just ask what CA and AZ want to do with UT’s Lake Powell.
Drink it all up?
And we woulda got away with it too if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids and their dumb-looking mutt.
In the morning you go gunning for the man who stole your water
Cough, cough, Michigan?
Though as is the case throughout the world now the “Chicago way” is screwing us all.
McGehee, the tip-off should have been all the missing snacks at the filling station.
What goes around comes around… Watch out Oregon.
And for New Mexico and Oregon, serves you right for voting for Obama.