The Southwestern portion of the united states has been experiencing a drought for close to eight years. Now this, regarding an antiquated 19th century law in Colorado.
From the LA Times
Every time it rains here, Kris Holstrom knowingly breaks the law.
Holstrom’s violation is the fancifully painted 55-gallon buckets underneath the gutters of her farmhouse on a mesa 15 miles from the resort town of Telluride. The barrels catch rain and snowmelt, which Holstrom uses to irrigate the small vegetable garden she and her husband maintain.
But according to the state of Colorado, the rain that falls on Holstrom’s property is not hers to keep. It should be allowed to fall to the ground and flow unimpeded into surrounding creeks and streams, the law states, to become the property of farmers, ranchers, developers and water agencies that have bought the rights to those waterways.
[...]
“If you try to collect rainwater, well, that water really belongs to someone else,” said Doug Kemper, executive director of the Colorado Water Congress. “We get into a very detailed accounting on every little drop.”
Every drop?
If someone hits a golf ball into my yard, does it become my property? If God wants to drop a few gallons of rain on my roof and I collect it to water plants, am I stealing? With all the green this and green that going on these days, this issue must have the greenies wondering, what the f**k?
.. as Kris Holstrom describes her worldview. She is a solar-powered, organic farmer, Telluride Daily Planet columnist (“A Growing Concern”) and a mother. Her farm—Tomten, derived from a Swedish legend of a gnome-like creature said to guard farms and their inhabitants—provides food for area restaurants and Telluride Farmers Market shoppers and hosts schoolchildren and others who come to observe the intricacies of a working, high-altitude off-the-grid farm. Additionally, she is the region’s new sustainability coordinator, a position suited to this dynamic, hale woman whose mission it is to help communities live in harmony with the Earth. More [here].
Hey, if that’s your gig, more power to you. But it does make you wonder just how are they going to determine that someone is stealing water, (from God). Bring on the water police!
There is a bright side to the story.
Residents who collect rainwater for their flower and vegetable gardens are actually in violation of laws dating to the late 19th century, the newspaper says.
State Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, and state Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan, introduced legislation to relax the ban after presenting a study showing that 97 percent of rainwater that falls never makes it to the streams.
H/T: awelfle
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And what about the people who have windmills?
Are they stealing too?
Now that is funny!!!
I’m not “stealing” God’s rainwater…but HE DID tell me it was OK to sell it off to tree-huggers on the LEFT COAST for a huge profit!
God’s cool that way.