So let me get this straight. If I'm a private property owner, and I collect rainwater that falls on my property, I go to jail. But if I'm a commercial property owner, and and I don't collect rainwater that falls on my property, I go to jail.

Of course, that's this week.

Hey those aren't illegal reservoirs, it's a wetland.

I felt sorrier for him before I read about the dams and the fish. Sounds like taking back his permits wasn't all that arbitrary.

Not that I have a problem with someone playing the system like the system plays everybody, but forget playing on my sympathy. This guy has such a good line of bullshit he should be a politician.

Rainwater belongs to the state in Washington, too. One is forbidden by law to collect rainwater, as Seattle greenies who route their downspouts into barrels for manual toilet-flushing have found out.

He wasn't collecting rainwater in a barrel so he could water his tomatoes, he had *dams*. With *gates*. It sounds like a large operation, and no, you aren't allowed to just go do that. He'd already been to court over it, complied with the court's order, and then defied it.

If a homeowner has a rain barrel or two I doubt anyone would give a rip, although you're not supposed to do that, either. There may be a permitting process for that; I have yet to look into it. I'd like to collect rainwater for beer making, so I guess one of these days I'll find out. However, it sounds to me like this guy could go boating on his pond, and that's just a bit much.

OT: All about the
lyrics.

As Foaming said, this is not "Oregon" - nor is it some Horrible Creeping Socialism.

(Not that Oregon doesn't have that, but this isn't a symptom of it.)

This is "pretty much all of the American West", which operates on prior-appropriation water rights, and has since it was settled, pretty much. Helped stop range wars over water, for one thing.

Riparian rights ("water falls, it's yours") are an eastern-US thing.

Bureaucratic processes have been elevated above constitutional protections. Jesus Christ, this kind of bullshit sparks insurrections.

My mother-in-law got fined for collecting water in rain barrels. We live in Oregon.

Rain and other water belongs to the cities. Rural folks can up and die for all the cities care.

I just took a satellite view of Crowfoot Rd, Eagle Point, Oregon.

The imagery has plenty of green trees, some underbrush and bare spots. The thing I'm not seeing is a direct link to any streams, run, creeks, rivers, or other bodies of water.

This is equivalent to declaring a chunk of some farmer's property suddenly declared a wetland after the family has been farming it for forty plus years.

Yes, Guy put it in more recently than that. The reciprocal question is why does the government have the right to tell you what you can do on your private property.

There are some reasonable community standards that need to be observed in urban and suburban environments such as limiting the number of yard sales, trash removal, etc. When you have effects on neighbors and neighborhoods that is where your rights compared to the community rights comes into play. Note that this is outside of HOA communities.

In rural environments -- as long you aren't dumping chemicals, blocking waterways, or otherwise actively causing damage to the neighbors property, the government shouldn't be able to do shit.

There might be a bit more to the story and the water collected. From size of property to where the water comes from? Even the collecting from a small stream can have a detrimental effect on surrounding properties.

My question is what is the effect on the neighbors.

Still in the end property rights is property rights. He should have some say in what he does.

The one thing that sticks in my craw is the back and forth with permits. That is insane. I wish governments would just settle and stick with what they do, even if the consequences are bad.

I was feeling sorry for this guy until I dug a little deeper.

I dont know if its ture or not but one article claimed he had built earthen dams more than ten feet high to divert the water.

This seems to be more than a case of a guy colleting water in barrels, and while in theory I agree the water that falls on his property is his, what about the water that falls on the proerty north of him used to run thru his and went on to water the plants of the guy on the proerty south of him?

And John Paulson with property rights being property rights whats to stop the guy with the edjacent property upstream from building an eaven bigger dam on the property line and preventing any water from leaving his propety?

This guys ponds would dry up might fast if all he really had was just the water that fell on his property when it rained as opsed to all the water that falls on all of his neighbors up hill which he diverts with artifical dams

The reciprocal question is why does the government have the right to tell you what you can do on your private property.

Because the American West, including Oregon, handles water rights by prior allocation, not by "it's your land so it's your water".

Someone is downstream of him (as we know because he doesn't live on a lake) - and downstream water users have water rights that he doesn't get to interfere with.

In libertarian terms, we can view it as an externality that can (quite possibly justifiably) interfere with "property rights" just like any externality can.

(See lujlp's example for why the West uses prior-allocation water rights, to, say, prevent farmers from starving out ranchers or vice versa.)

Prefer riparian water rights? Okay.

Convince Oregon to change to them, and see about making all the water users in the state who depend on a long history of perfectly defensible prior-allocation water rights to go along with it.

Either set is defensible, is the thing - both establish individual rights to water access. In desert-y places (like southern Oregon off the coast, where this guy lives), places tend towards prior-allocation rights simply to prevent the easiest abuses.

(Though, even under riparian rights, one doesn't, in the common law tradition, have a right to impede flow off your property in a way that harms the downstream user.

Water, being something that flows, simply hasn't ever been, under common law or even under libertarian theory, something that "you can do whatever with, because your property".

Demands that it should be so without analysis or mention of downstream users are, well... not serious.)

Because the American West, including Oregon, handles water rights by prior allocation, not by "it's your land so it's your water". -- Sigivald at August 10, 2012 12:47 PM

The problem is that state does not appear to be arguing prior allocation (Prior-appropriation water rights) or Riparian rights.

Additionally -- please show me where and how Crowfoot Rd, Eagle Point, Oregon is adjacent to a body of water, let alone navigable.

Under your definition -- if I dug a pit in the center of my property it would be illegal.

"Additionally -- please show me where and how Crowfoot Rd, Eagle Point, Oregon is adjacent to a body of water, let alone navigable."

You don't have to be near a body of water to be interfering with the water supply, so your question is irrelevant. Water is public property out here, all water, wherever it is.

"Under your definition -- if I dug a pit in the center of my property it would be illegal."

First off, it's not his definition, it's the definition under settled law. Secondly, if you drill a well on your property and tap an aquifer that belongs to everyone, then yes, that is and ought to be illegal. it has always been possible out here to own a piece of land without either the water or the minerla rights to that land.