Posted on 12/28/2016 12:48:41 PM PST by Lorianne
An Oregon couple has been told they must destroy a 2-acre pond on their land — the property’s most attractive feature — because the government said so.
Although Jon and Sabrina Carey purchased the 10-acre property near Butte Falls two and a half years ago, the pond has been in place for 40 years — but that fact doesn’t matter to the Jackson County Watermaster’s Office.
“I basically bought a lemon,” said Jon, who became teary-eyed at the edge of the partially ice-covered body of water being targeted by government, in an interview with the Mail Tribune. “That’s how they explained it to me.” But the couple desperately wants to keep the stunning longstanding feature in tact, so, as the Mail Tribune reports, the Careys have “pleaded with the Medford Water Commission to adopt the pond and treat it as a municipal water source, something Jackson County Watermaster Larry Menteer has opposed because of the precedent it would set.
“The Water Commission has rights to the watershed around the Careys’ property, where dozens, if not hundreds, of ponds are located, as well as Medford’s primary source of water, Big Butte Springs.”
And the Careys aren’t the only people in the watershed who’ve had difficulties with, well, ‘the government’s’ water.
Eagle Point resident Gary Harrington spent 90 days in jail for illegally harboring some 13 million gallons of illicit rainwater — that’s enough rain to fill around 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Harrington masterfully crafted several ponds on his property — even building docks for one, and stocking it with largemouth bass — but his insistence the water would assist in fire control and prevention didn’t satisfy the government, since a “1925 state law dictates that the water belongs to the Medford Water Commission.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thefreethoughtproject.com ...
“The land belongs to you, the water does not.”
Says who? Some effin’ out-of-control government? The government doesn’t create the rain nor does it in any legitimate way own it. Your comment reflects the mentality of a serf.
“Furthermore, it is not unusual for a government agency or authority to own the rainwater in a watershed. Here in Texas, people are billed or fined for drawing water from lakes that their property ajoins.”
Texas will eventually get swatted down for its theft of common law water rights, as was the EPA and and Army Corps of Engineers by the SCOTUS. Property owners have reasonable water drawing rights. That’s well established in English common law.
This is a state issue, not a federal one (although the Supreme Court did a fine job of clearing up a riparian issue in 1950.
Here in Michigan, we have “riparian” rights, which means that whomever owns the land adjacent to the water controls that bit of water. Out west, they use the “appropriation” rights, which means that the first person to use the water in a good way gets to control it. Wouldn’t it suck to live on a river and not be able to use the water to water your livestock? Yep, you have to put down a well for that.
Seems like a very easy thing to do is rewrite the law. Sure, there will be a fight with the corporate water holders....but this issue has been a pain in the keister for so long...you’d think a few people could start a grassroots movement and make the law one that allows people to use the water that God sends their way.
The story is not presented that way. It states the government has rights to water around the property. Sounds like the water rights as it pertains to real estate title is not a the issue.
“Says who?”
The law in most, if not all states.
Many of the Water Laws in the US go back far more than 100 years and have not been altered. In law school, there are classes on Water Law. There are attorneys who make a great living specializing in Water Law.
The state, local governments and the various river authorities consider the water to belong to them, and usually the law is on their side.
You completely missed the point.
The pond wasn’t hidden.
bingo !!!
I’d have done suicide by cop. No way I could put up with this fascism/communism.
Y’all just keep right on electing those folks and they’ll keep right on abusing your rights.
would they have bought the property if Butte Falls Highway told them they would not have access to nor own the pond ?
It does beg the question whether Butte Falls Highway knew about the pond.
Ridiculous. This isn’t liberty. It’s the opposite of liberty.
Texas is also ruled by fascists.
Gov is probably selling the water to Cali, so gov makes it illegal for property owners to keep the water that falls on their property.
You should not be allowed to sell water and mineral rights. That is immoral. Water and mineral rights should stay with the property, period. Lawyers screw up EVERYTHING!
“Thank God I live in Michigan (and, no, you can’t have any of our water!).”
I’ve often wondered why massive pipelines from the Great Lakes to the arid western states, and even California, haven’t been built yet. There’s probably a million miles of oil and gas pipelines crisscrossing the nation, but few for water.
On another note, I wonder if the Sioux and the environazis would protest a pipeline that brought them water?
Right. One of the reasons I left the Seattle area was things like needing a permit to save the rain water off your roof. On my 32 acres in KY I can save all the rain water I want. I can dig a pond to gather it, dam up the two streams on my property if I so choose, etc.
At the end of the4 day, it all just flows through anyway.
An added bonus where I live, and somewhat related, is that I don’t need a building permit to build a home - or anything else. I’ve already put up a couple of small ones and am still working on getting the 36x36 garage up.
I can also hunt game on my property without a hunting license.
Freedom is so awesome out here!
Better source than the soft porn sidebar site: http://www.mailtribune.com/news/20161220/couple-told-40-year-old-pond-near-butte-falls-is-illegal
If the law was in place when they purchased the property (and it sounds like it was), then they had the opportunity to factor that into the price they paid for the property.
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