I'm not disagreeing with you on that,but if you can do it yourself,you shouldn't have to pay the bastards for a permit to do so. Now this guy was collecting a lot of water,but it should be okay if it's a reasonable amount for your home. If you build a dam/pond/stream for your own home not only could you have your own water supply,but you can also use it to produce energy. If people who lived in a place where there is a lot of rain,they can save themselves A LOT of money and help the environment by using green energy.
13 million gallons of water is ALOT. Given it seems like they jailed him because they for butthurt he didn't listen. It'd be understandable I it affected the ecosystem or the water supply in a significant way
I don't care if it is taking away from the nearby cities water supply. Dude dug a hole. It rained. The hole filled with water. Who gives a shit. Nobody owns rain. People do own property. He did this all on his own land as far as I know. If you think it's unfair, you should have the right to go dig your own hole on your own land and wait for it to rain. People saying that it might drain from other lakes, so what? The water isn't owned, the land is. You are putting the desires of a group above the RIGHTS of an individual. Which is entirely the opposite of how it should be.
Stoners: Getting angry about something they know nothing about just because the Government was involved. You don't know the laws, you don't know the reasoning for why it happened. I myself never come to a conclusion about anything before I know the facts on the matter. Yet it seems so easy for you all to just go "OMG GOVERNMENT TYRANNY RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE". He clearly had more water than was necessary for his own use. That's factual. The law being completely wrong. That's not factual. There could be good reasoning for it. Bottled water is not an issue either, it has nothing to do with this story. I'm sure the companies that sell bottled water are following FDA regulations and also have permits, unlike this guy. You also don't have to buy bottled water, especially in first world countries. You all have taps. Another interesting point is that in Australia, WATER'S NOT FREE. We have to pay for it since we get such strange rain flow. So you can all go yammering about how water should be for everyone, here in Australia those laws seem completely necessary because of the fact that we go through droughts. How would you feel being a farmer and knowing that a bunch of people (imagine if 10000 people did this like him) were hoarding water and you weren't able to get your share in order to sell crops for people to buy. You all need to get your head out of your asses and maybe not jump to conclusions on things.
We have to pay in my city for water since the water is limited here als. The farmers have a set amount of water to grow they're crops because of the shortage. But they're getting a higher limit next year due to the extra water from the excessive rain and snow melt of this year. So I can see where the law comes from. 13 million is again... ALOT of water and affects a lot of people. One guy can't go through that much water in a lifetime
that's still pretty dumb logic man. rain water is rain water, you can't control where it goes or how much one particular place gets. you just can't. lets say i live in australia aswell, and i had a deep hole in my backyard and one season it decides to fill up, what your saying is i should be prosecuted for that? no. just no. then you try and justify that "oh the farmers need it for their crops" but everyone else who has plants or a garden or even a fucking hole for that matter is shit out of luck cos their not a farmer. there isn't one group of people that need it more then the other - you can try and rationalize it any way you want. but you can't say its bad to collect rain water then say its okay for certain people to do it. besides - it rains all.the.fucking.time in oregon and a hell of a lot of it will never see the light of day because its NOT being collected, so i don't see why this is such a huge matter. i live in arizona, we get droughts all the time. i'd say more power to the people using their heads collecting rain water instead of just letting it sink into the ground like it would anyway. its a very naturalistic way of life to think like that, how can you really get mad at someone for using their head? its not like this guy was trying to sell it for profit, if that where so - he would be in the wrong. but he wasn't.
I just read the article again (I'm assuming most posting here haven't done, if you're reading this sentence right now, have a look at yourself) and there's a very key point that the article seems to convey very shrewdly. The fact that the regulators of such permits had a suspicion that he had been diverting watershed water tributaries. That most certainly is illegal. I don't care if you dig a hole and it fills up with water. That's not the issue. He was under suspicion of stealing other people's water (the state's in this case) and therefore lost his permit, as he deserved to have done. In 2007 they re-investigated him and he plead guilty to water diversion, agreed to close up his dams, only to reopen them shortly thereafter. It makes me sad that in our community of Grasscity I literally have to repeat what an article says (the topic of the thread) in order to get you all to listen to reason. But no, here on Grasscity we all jump to the defence of anyone being admonished. It's ridiculous and I'm beginning to see what all of those people I used to laugh at were saying. Stoners are the friendliest of people, but this forum is starting to show me that you all don't have much critical thinking skills.
i just don't even know what to say... if that isn't on the list of things that can tip the iceberg into telling people its to fight the system with violence then i don't know what will maybe 1000 more little ki... ill just stop there but thats def messed up especially since it doesn't even look like he was collecting it... its a pond LOL
If it was all done on his own land then there should be no problem. We have the right to do whatever the fuck we want on our land as long as it isn't harming others. Or at least we should. You know that if the government chose to do something like this nobody would even question it. Why does the government have more power than it's citizens in matters such as this? You say we don't have critical thinking skills, but to be completely honest, this doesn't require critical thinking skills. The answer is staring you right in the face. This is wrong. Maybe I didn't read the entire article, but I did skim through it. Correct me if I'm wrong and i'll shut up, but wasn't it on his land? To me that's all that's important. To your comment about droughts, I don't believe that's an issue in the state this where this happened. Not always, but there are times when it is the only answer.
It's apparent that you didn't read the post you quoted. He said that the guy was diverting watershed water tributaries. That's stealing someone else's water, far different from collecting rain water. Would it be okay to break into a gas line and collect gas if its on your property? Same deal.
Actually you're incorrect (I think), that's not what it says at all. Translation: the city of Medford holds all rights to "core sources of water": source being rainwater. Now a watershed is a bit more confusing. Apparently the rain hits the ground, soaks through and finds underground springs which carry it to rivers By collecting rainwater, not stealing it, he prevented the water from reaching those springs and finding rivers. Now if I understand correctly, watershed and it's tributaries refers to where the rain falls. So essentially, he dug a hole in the ground which prevented the rain on his land from reaching a final destination, where it is usually siphoned up and sold for millions to states like California (where I live In central Cali and know all about water rights and problems, trust me) which grows almost a third (or mo) of the WORLDS food. One little issue can turn real big fast as the guy said earlier, imagine if a buncha people got wise and held water on their lands, the govt makes no profits and has to spend money. So they make it illegal for you to do it so there's no competition. Let's be real, there's no conspiracy, it is what it is. Problem is, They're wrong. I decide that with votes, not the govt. the fact that they don't care what the public thinks means it's time for them to get on unemployment and let some citizens make laws that benefit citizens, not the govt. The city had to go back and find a law from 1925 to reverse the decision. Why? Because water is expensive and like the federal govt, who holds all patents to marijuana, these politicians are overreaching and using bs laws to prevent people from doing what they want on their own land. Kinda like this other bs here:http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/1222/Phonehenge-West-creator-jailed-When-folk-art-and-building-codes-collide?nav=605219-csm_article-spotlight saw this guy on some discovery channel show and since they no longer teach art in schools, consider artists hippy potsmoking freethinking druggies, it only makes sense to step on anyones toes who wants to do whatever the fuck they want on their own lands. I'm a historian and I can tell you that when the Feds couldn't fuck moonshiners all those years ago cuz they couldn't get federal permission to trespass on private property, they used a gun law that set he precedent for every case to follow (18 inch barrels). If you cant see the correlation, it's all good. It's the reason most people aren't awake. Self sufficiency is anti-American, ask the capitalistic country that borrows all their money from the commies../ end rant Not knowing what a watershed was I googled and read a while. See here: I never took geology in all the years of my public, American education, go figure, so I had to do a bit of reading. Feel free to correct my ignorance as you see fit.
i actually read the article, while it wasnt very good there was a decent point: he made those reservoirs, they aren't natural. the city's not mad that he's collecting water, its the gross amount that he's collecting. 13,000,000 gallons of water that could be used by everyone is in the hands of one person, who built water collection systems without permits.
Here's more of the story: Man jailed for 30 days after building reservoirs on HIS OWN LAND with enough water to fill 20 Olympic-sized pools | Mail Online This articles a lot better, lots more info since we're debating without all the facts. Tbh, the only reason I could see the need for a permit after reading the new article is because if one of those damns breaks, that's a flood waiting to happen. At the same time, the articles say it was properly made with permits that we're later revoked....
I was just talking about what was said in the post he quoted. If you read both, it's obvious that the quoter didn't read through what he quoted. Namely: