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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 ...
Good point. Air contains oxygen and the FDA has ruled that oxygen is a prescription drug. So technically, yes, it could be construed as the governments air.
And there is the problem. This needs to become highly UNUSUAL. like so unusual there are no known examples.
Under what authority does the government own rainwater? Do they also own the wind and the sunlight?
These people need to tell the government to go F%ck themselves.
the problem is the man lives in Oregon.
only fools live in oregon. the Ameritrash factor is so high in Oregon that real americans just aren’t welcome
The pond is of a fixed volume and any water that goes above that volume will run off into the spillway. So long as the pond doesn’t expand, what volume of water goes in must come out. What if they were to empty the pond, buy the water via the municipal water system and refill the pond? The government would no longer own the water as the property owners bought it same as if it were a swimming pool. While rain water would run into the pond it would only be displacing the water already paid for so the government would receive an equivalent volume of water as if the pond did not exist. Problem solved (but then again I am not a public bureaucrat with control issues).
The unasked question is ...why now? The pond was there for 40 years and the law was from 1925. Why are they enforcing these laws now and insisting on the letter of the law instead of being guided by the spirit of the law? Somebody is getting something out of this...
Yup. Sounds like this may be in the area of riparian rights or lack thereof.
??
The government owns the rainwater?
Tell that to God and Noah!
The bad word is “property “. You only think you own your land or house. You paid for it. You pay taxes on it. The government takes a percent each year, so that after 30 years the government has confiscated its entire value. If you die with your “property” the government decides how much of it it is going to take.
The end goal is government ownership of all property: communism, but they don’t dare say the word, hoping we won’t catch on.
If you would like more information about what's happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me.
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Riparian rights are part of the Common Law inherited from England. They are part of the "Bundle of Rights" which a landowner acquires on purchase of the property.
If I were these landowners I would first look at the Title Insurance to see if this is an insured risk. If an attorney was used in the purchase and the intended use was disclosed to the attorney i would consider bringing an action against the attorney especially if they did the title work.
If all else fails and the lake level represents the surrounding water table level, consider drilling a shallow " domestic" water well for the double-wide and then use it for farm purposes.
http://www.ehow.com/how_5887550_assistance-build-farm-ponds.html
Every liberal is a totalitarian thug.
Kick the mayor out.
“don’t move into any place where the government insists they own the water.”
Isnt that pretty much everywhere?
Maryland taxes rain. I kid you not!
if the gooberment owns it, then keep it off of my property, and if i get a flood, im gonna sue you for not controlling your water
The Feds have no business in this. The Oregon idiots put the idiots in power and they can suffer the consequences.
There are no Feds involved.
No I think actually that conservatives should move to Oregon and start outnumbering the ‘tards.
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