Yes, seriously.
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.
NYTimes Quote of the Day:
"Where does it stop? Does that mean you own the cloud, too?"
JASON STORY, who ran afoul of a Colorado state law when he tried to collect water in a rain barrel for his vegetable garden.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/us...=37692144&_r=0
What a mess. I must say, living in a province that contains 100,000 lakes give or take, thus having zero shortage of water, it's hard to fathom how some people who just want to water their fucking gardens by collecting rain in a barrel deserve a per-day fine of up to $500.
But there are two sides to this issue, and it's a long read, but a good one.
Personally I think it's a stupid law. If I lived there I might seriously think about rerouting water from my rain gutter pipe back into my house and into a barrel in my basement, and do it in such a way that it's nearly impossible to detect from the outside without close inspection. But that's just me thinking some laws need to be flouted, loudly and often.
What about you? Do you feel you own the water that lands on your roof?