and they've been debating this since I was there.

i honestly don't know that this bill will ever pass.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]The miniscule percentage of rain that people might catch and save would have NO effect on groundwater levels.

Saying it belongs to "the system" means only that the profiteers are afraid of people paying for less water - especially once corporations succeed in privatizing the supply, which is the ultimate goal.

Once again, as always, this obstruction is purely corporate profit driven.

the greed is sickening.

comes as a huge surprise to many when discussing water conservation efforts for home use, etc.

no, we cannot capture rainwater, no passive systems, etc. yes, there are times this is one truly messed-up state (and no, legal pot is NOT responsible for this insanity)

but it's much more progressive than it was when i was a kid.

Last edited Sat Mar 21, 2015, 08:16 PM - Edit history (1)

Here it's not only legal, it's encouraged. I have two rain barrels - one captures rain off the house roof, the other off the garage. The rain that goes into the barrels is the same rain that would otherwise fall on my yard, and I merely store that very same water in the barrels and just put it on the yard later, when it isn't raining. I am unable to wrap my brain around the rationale for prohibiting rain barrels. It's the same damn water going to the same damn place! The only thing that changes is when it goes there!

When visiting family in Washington State a couple years back, I was amazed to learn that residents aren't allowed to capture the rain off the roof; especially surprising given the area's well known raininess. Now they're looking at drought, with snowpack in the Olympic Mountains at 3% of normal.

Gonna get more interesting all over the place.

Washington state changed the law in 2009. The original law was 100 years old and was intended to prevent private parties from building reservoirs and diverting water, not to single out rain barrels.

I have no idea why this is being debated at all, it should be one of those no brainer decisions.

I guess the usual light switch thinkers and zero tolerancers are on the prowl again.

Yes, a few gallons here and there won't make that much difference - But, imagine several hundreds of people bypassing the meter and using rain barrel water for gardens, car washing, etc. Could mean quite a bit for the company running which is usually a monopoly for water distribution.

Now I could see a reason for debate if people were having those rain barrels siphoned off to sell to water starved farmers or something, but putting it back where it would have gone in the first place does no harm to anyone but a fat pig of a water company exec who sees a few dollars escaping his grasp.

Funny, around here, a rain barrel might cause me to break ground for a kitchen garden, if we'd been getting enough to support a rain barrel or two. Without them, forget it, water is so costly that any veg I grew would have invisible gold plating on it.