http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/u...s-raindrops-drought.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1
I get that water is a precious resource, especially in the western states, but I can't even fathom it being illegal to collect raindrops.
Here's an idea. Maybe try doing something about some of the things that are causing water shortages, like overpopulation and climate change.
I love this part...Water is precious in the arid West, now more than ever as the worst drought in decades bakes fields in California and depletes reservoirs across the region. To encourage conservation, cities and water agencies in California and other states have begun nudging homeowners to use captured rain for their gardens, rather than water from the backyard faucet.
But Colorado is one of the last places in the country where rainwater barrels are still largely illegal because of a complex system of water rights in which nearly every drop is spoken for.
And when legislators here tried to enact a law this spring to allow homeowners to harvest the rain, conservationists got a lesson in the power of the entrenched rules that allocate Western water to those who have first claim to it. Even if it is the rain running down someone’s roof.
Collecting rainwater from your own property is like stealing from a retailer? What a ridiculous comparison.“It’s actually stealing,” said State Senator Jerry Sonnenberg, a Republican from Sterling, a northeastern farming and ranching town on the plains, who voted against the rain barrel measure when it landed in the Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy Committee he leads. “You might say, it’s a little bit of water, just a barrelful, how much damage could that do to someone downstream?”
But, he continued, “If it’s just a little bit, why wouldn’t we allow everyone go to into 7-Eleven and take just one bottle of water, just a little bit?”
I get that water is a precious resource, especially in the western states, but I can't even fathom it being illegal to collect raindrops.
Here's an idea. Maybe try doing something about some of the things that are causing water shortages, like overpopulation and climate change.