Making Rainwater Harvesting Illegal

here is the thing my husband, James pointed out to me in the early part of the article that was overlooked.........I am copying it to show it..........

" For all water uses that are non-domestic, a person must have a water right."

now what he's pointed out is individual persons, such as you or I are domestic persons. What they're wanting to insure is that NON-DOMESTIC persons, such as commercial industries, or farms don't harvest rainwater to cut back on expenses and gather rainwater that falls from the sky. It's clearly evident that unless you understand the wording, you can immediately assume that they're trying to "regulate the rain from the sky" for everyone's usage. Had James not pointed this out to me, I had already assumed what I thought was Colorado already imposing regulations. But they're imposing regulations on non-domestic persons, not individuals and "domestic" persons such as ourselves. I could live in Aurora, Colorado (where I once lived) and have a rain barrel and use it and not face any oppositions from their new laws.

The opinions that are expressed are only mine and my English husband's and don't reflect everyone elses views or opinions which I respect individually.

madgardener (maddie) gardening in containers in upper northeastern Tennessee zone 7a, Sunset zone 36 where I save rainwater every chance I can until serious mosquito season arrives.......(then I use a mosquito donut....)

Reply to
madgardener1
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g'day madgardener1,

point taken.

could also be the thin edge of the wedge, gov's are good at that.

On Sun, 19 Apr 2009 10:17:05 -0700 (PDT), snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote: snipped With peace and brightest of blessings,

len & bev

-- "Be Content With What You Have And May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In A World That You May Not Understand."

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Reply to
len gardener

The exact quote is:

With "gray water" you are usually cautioned to watch your plants for any bad reactions to the water. I don't think that would be necessary here.

The operable word here is "collected". It does indeed depend on how you collect it. I won't bore you with tales of dead birds floating in our local water tower, or of the sewage that riverside municipalities dump into the river, or even the sulfur, arsenic, and coliform bacteria from pastoral run-off that finds its' way into local wells (we use a carbon filter). No. None of that.

No, I'm going to have to bask in the unpardonable sin of flouting my regional environment (which we all love to do when we get the chance, be it planting okra in April, or sledding in September). Unlike those of you east of the Rocky Mountains, we, to the west, only see rain during the winter (ergo "Golden State", the hills are a golden brown). We don't get those 30 min. downpours that flush the crap from the air, leaving the air pristine, until the smokestacks once again do their magic. Those

30 min. downpours that bring the airborn toxins to ground to poison your lakes and steams, and kill your forests. The air then is recharged with fresh toxins and the cycle repeats.

Our air comes in from over the Pacific Ocean and continues on east (unless you live in La La Land, in which case it runs into the San Bernardino Mountains and you keep breathing the same exhaust fumes for weeks). What toxins that may be carried by the air are quickly removed for us by the first few minutes of rain. The rain that falls over the next hours or days is nearly as good as the day after "creation".

Given pure, clean water, the question is how to collect it? Collected from roof tops and gutters, the water would reflect their cleanliness. Most of our birds disappear by Dec. and return in March. If I were to drink water from my roof (which is metal), I would hose off the roof first and flush out the gutters (which have screens over them). Even so, I would probably either boil the water or add hypochlorite to it before I drank it.

To have really good drinking water, I could set out some 5 gal. water bottles with wide funnels in them and catch the purest water this side of distillation, that there is.

But then, we were talking about the "STATE" claiming the rain that fell on our land (if your lucky enough to have land). Most of us own the mineral rights below the surface, I think that I would make the argument that the mineral rights above the surface fall into the same category, unless they were sold. If not, the next logical step is, if a smokestack owner wants to pollute it, it's none of your business, but to remediate the situation, he would happily sell you a supply of clean air.

This is known as neo-liberalism and the motto is "The greatest good comes from a free market place, to hell with democracy".

I am the earth.  You are the earth.  The Earth is dying.  You and I are murderers.  ~Ymber Delecto

Reply to
Billy

On 4/19/2009 12:17 PM, Billy wrote [in part]:

In most urban and suburban areas of California (and likely other states), the ownership of mineral rights was separated from surface rights long before tracts were subdivided. Few homeowners who own the land on which their houses sit also own the minerals or water under the house.

Reply to
David E. Ross

And this is all duly noted in your deed. What does your deed say about the mineral rights above the surface of your property. That is my point.

Reply to
Billy

Hey Charlie! How ya doing? :-))

I can never quite understand that. And if I hear once again about the problems of rainwater coming into contact with bird poop on the roof, I think I'll scream. Pity the drongos who worry about that don't do some reading before making such sily comments.

I much prefer to dring water that I control and not some civic entity. But then perhaps this comes from having lived ina small village where the poop farm treatment works was right beside the town water supply. We regualarly got notices not to drink the town water but to boil it for 3 mions. 'They' always said that there was no connection between the problems of the water supply and the poo factory but I had grave doubts.

Yep. Coming soon to a town near you........

How's you worm riding going?

Reply to
FarmI

Not so! The article I read, which is the cite that Charlie gave, does indeed call the water "greywater". After mentioning the residents collecting rainwater, the article say: "Using this "greywater", as it is called".......

There is absolutley no mention of "comtemporayr" standards of drinking water.

And the definition of "greywater" is definitely preloved water, ie, it has been through the household. Other domestic water can also be "blackwater" and one shouldn't use that without significan t treatment.

When one considers what birds leave

What do you think might be the problem in a bit of bird poop?

Yep.

If I dump in on my garden it is going > onto the ground just a surely as if I hadn't been there in the first place.

Yep

That

Yep.

Reply to
FarmI

It's a matter of what you see (or imagine) versus what is carefully hidden away by municipal authorities.

In the local village with reticulated water the lower the river gets the more chlorine they add, in a drought it is nearly toxic. This is done to IMPROVE its quality.

David

Reply to
David Hare-Scott

Water off of a roof in the middle of winter, once boiled and settled, has to be better than what comes out of the municipal tap with it's chlorine and trihalomethanes.

Reply to
Billy

The rain itself is still pure (whatever that means). The roof is part of the collection system, as are the spout and the barrel. But that doesn't change the fact that the rain water was clean (whatever that means) before it hit the collection system.

Picky picky picky.... :-)

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

g'day dr-solo,

here again where is there any hard case evidence that there are any issues? could not rain water be on the acid side from some other factor?

and all that fallout that may be on rooves is it in a solluable form?

again as lots of folk are drinking rain water from their own tanks, and there is no evidence of a general pandemic in the hospitals, could you provide us some please?

On Sun, 19 Apr 2009 10:51:51 -0500, snipped-for-privacy@wi.rr.com wrote: snipped With peace and brightest of blessings,

len & bev

-- "Be Content With What You Have And May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In A World That You May Not Understand."

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Reply to
len gardener

g'day len, always good to have your nurturing advice and observations. The composition of rain water usually reflects where the air that carries it has been. Just before planting, in Mid-west, here in the USA, the rain water could be basic (high pH) because of the ammonia injected into the fields for (futile) fertility. [How anything that kills the soil, and leads to loss of topsoil can be called a fertilizer just shows how far the "double-speak" of Monsanto and Dow Chemical has invaded our language.] The rain is pure as pure can be after a short interval needed to entrain the pollutants out of the air.

People only need to use common sense in collecting it.

The water that dr-solo drinks requires Herculean efforts to make it presentable. Its' source is tainted with every imaginable natural and industrial waste.

There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all. ~Robert Orben

Reply to
Billy

Is anybody else humming Tom Lehrer's "Pollution?"

The breakfast garbage they throw into the bay They drink for lunch in San Jose.

East coast version:

The breakfast garbage they throw out Troy They drink for lunch in Perth Amboy.

Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

Reply to
Gary Woods

and that entraining leads to the sediment layer i get in the bottom of my tank (after 2 years barely a match stick thickness), i might add well below the flow off point for the water. yes we have had problems with our pool when we used tank water (well so teh pool water tester said) we needed to treat our pool with some copper based substance, he explaind because of those fertilisation techniques you mentioned this ended up drawn up into the rain water (mind you we get no issues when lots of rain tops up the pool only seemingly when it came out of a rainwater tank), now farms are a very long way away from us, anyhow the treatment worked, not so sure about the cause as we are still very healthy well apart from aged diseases. but yes farming techniques chemically driven still have a lot to answer for, land degredation being a big one.

lol billy lol, called uncommon sense these days.

and everyone around him suffers not hey lol?

yep but wouldn't that show as increased air ways health issues, which it no doubt does, but that gets no mention only the unsopportable calims of health risk drinking said rainwater.

-- "Be Content With What You Have And May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In A World That You May Not Understand."

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Reply to
len gardener

There was a technical advance in pollution control about 1975. A device called a bag house was introduced which captured small particles. So we could all breathe better. Nice idea. However the particles as small as they were would hold on to the gas about and rain would wash them down. Without the particles the gas just hangs about longer. Sort of reminds me of catalytic devices on wood stoves only on a larger scale. Seems to me no easy answer and media has yet to hint at teaming microbes and what it implies . Just what is wrong with the first lady and why would anyone want an organic garden?

may be having a skit on roundup right now. A start .......

Bill listening to birds song and this here music.

Poems from Tang, for string quartet and orchestra: III. Hearing the Monk Xun, Play the Qin by Li Bai (701 - 762) 6:18 Peter Pritchard Long: Rhymes (Orchestral Music) Classical MPEG audio file

2004
Reply to
Bill

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> Screw 'em.

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Here's the unedited response I got from the L.A. Times reporter:

"thanks; the folks i spoke with basically considered it akin to greywater in terms of use and spoke of it interchangeably sometimes with true greywater, so i put in the fudged "generally considered" statement."

Conclusions:

1) Since the first page of Google hits contain nothing but ACCURATE information, he's incompetent for not doing any research other than talking to a few idiots.

2) He fudged, so he is incompetent.

3) He can't write. Incompetent.

I'd ask how he got through journalism school, but I already know the answer.

Reply to
JoeSpareBedroom

Pretty damn well, thank ya! The two young ankle-biters are going full speed and are ready for gardening.....the little girl is the toughest and smartest of them all.....

It's a shame, for sure. Drongos? I gather the meaning in a general sense, and I like it!

It's not right that we have to filter our municipal water to remove the additives and the friggin' chemicals and the damned pissed out drugs. Our water supply comes from a lake.......that is heavily used for boating, has thousands of acres of crop runoff and runoff from an eighteen hole golf course......nice toxic soup. Gimme birdshit and frogshit any day. I remember pulling water from my grannies cistern and putting the tree frogs, that often flowed in with the water back in the cistern opening.

Retrofitting for greywater storage and usage is a problem for many, particulary in urban settings. I've talked to people about this and some think it is disgusting to use shower water, etc on their gardens and all.....the same folks who advocate poisoning weeds and all that shit. Funny thing too, you ever ask people if they piss in the shower, and *lots*, mostly women, are grossed out. Good addition to greywater, IMNSHO.

I planted peas yesterday and some of the worms were half the size of Shai-Hulud. I've never seen so many worms. I gotta get my maker hooks ready!

Charlie

"The thing the ecologically illiterate don't realize about an ecosystem is that it's a system. A system! A system maintains a certain fluid stability that can be destroyed by a misstep in just one niche. A system has order, a flowing from point to point. If something dams the flow, order collapses. The untrained miss the collapse until too late. That's why the highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences." -- Liet-Kynes

Reply to
Charlie

Sorry Charlie :-)) I usually try to only write in a form of English that can be understood by Americans given that you mob dominate the ng. I slipped up in this case. It means a dope, a dill, a silly person. Unlike our use of 'bastard', drongo doesn't have a usage that could be considered to be affectionate.

I had thought that some drugs, such as female contraceptives, were one of the drugs that sewerage treatment works couldn't filter out. Wonder what effect all those hormones will have on downstream users over time?

Our water supply comes from a lake.......that is heavily used

Yep.

Frogs, like lichen, warn us of impending doom. No frogs or lichen means get out of there fast.

Yep. Can't be done in some places but a regualr here (George.com [I think] from NZ) has a good setup and IIRC he is in a suburban setting.

I've talked to people about this and

How very quaint :-)) Obviously too rich in resources. Put them through years of drought and they won't be quite so precious.

the same folks who advocate poisoning weeds and all that

LOL. I'll bet the same people wouldn't pee on their compost either. These people must be incredibly ignorant and have no interest in history whatsoever.

Just a bit of trivia for you: did you know that there are 6 foot long worms in Oz? (Or at least there used to be). In Gippspland, which is in the State of Victoria, there used to be 6 foot long native worms. Clearing of the forest has made inroads but they did indeed exist and perhaps still do. If you imported some of them and could interbreed then, you might be well on your way to worm riding.

Reply to
FarmI

Couldn't it merely be good old fashioned ignorance?

Our society has been plagued by ignorance in relation to things that people consider to be 'dirty'. We can thank the clean freaks for polio. It was only the western world that suffered from polio epidemics after all that palaver about sanitised households. God spare me from 'whiter than white' or 'antibacterial' kitchen cleaners.

The only time I got mild collywobbles about bird poop was when the Avian bird flu was around and there was soem concernt hat it might arive here with migratory birds.

I got in touch with our local RLPB vet who has wider coverage than just that organisation and who writes on things zoonose and animal related in the local paper to ask about the possiblity of transmission by way of rainwater and household supply. He did some research and wrote about it in the press - basically ,not a known issue. Good enough for me even with the proviso which he'd have been a dill not to add.

LOL. Yup!

Reply to
FarmI

...known in a parallel universe as Dick-Head.

Whereas ecology, as usually studied, is a system, the structure of what is usually considered the substance of the study is a web. The essence of a web is that is is not a chain. Interruption of a chain often leads to "bad" consequences, but interruption of a path in a web usually goes unnoticed, as other paths take up the slack.

The highest "function" of ecology.............has no meaning. Ecology (...ology) is a study. Studies have the singular "function" of informing. Therefore the highest........uh.....purpose (?) of ecology is to understand causes, not consequences. Don't misunderstand -- consequences are important, but without an understanding of causes, consequences are non sequitors.

Quotations are fun, but too often take the place of knowing, similar to argument from authority.

One man's profundity is another man's horseshit, which may be useful for fertilizer (or ammunition in my bungee-cord / bitchzilla bra slingshot) but little else.

cheers

oz, terribly profound

Reply to
MajorOz

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