WA Ping
I'll be contacting Mr. Spring to let him know he's got my support and respect!
Posted on 05/10/2012 7:25:10 PM PDT by Baynative
LONGVIEW, Wash. – Ken Spring of Longview says he does everything by the book.
He said all the buildings on his neatly tended property in Cowlitz County are permitted and he always tries to abide by the law.
But he also said he is willing to fight to keep a newly built, 30-foot tall windmill on his land.
“You'll find this hard to believe, but I'll die for that,” he said as the windmill spun around overhead. “I am fed up.”
(Excerpt) Read more at katu.com ...
Translation: We don't have any rules governing a properly installed windmill driving a permitted well on private property. But, we need to figure out how to get into this citizen's life and pocket book.
WA Ping
I'll be contacting Mr. Spring to let him know he's got my support and respect!
And people think they own their land...
They might have paid a hefty sum for it. But they are just renting it from the taxing authority.
John Brickey forgets for whom he works.
I trust Mr. Spring will educate him
I suspect the city is more than willing to take Mr. Spring up on his offer to die for his rights, if they can find some way to get away with it.
Mr. Brickey needs to Google up Carl Drega.
Now that passes for "fed up."
Giant wind-farms are, by and large, a boondoggle.
But just like FDR's Big Government "New Deal" REA caused the take-down of small-scale rural wind plants across the country, the modern Big Government plans for giant wind farms have started to take out the small-scale private generators.
That really p!sses me off.
(And, Oh, Yeah, I'd be totally on this guy's side even without the car collection and the doggy picture.)
Anyway, I'm with you and I'm with Mr. Spring all the way. I think the local government may be in a bit of a bind on this one.
I live in Longview, Washington.
I am single and live alone. I do three to four loads of clothes washing a week. I run the dishwasher every two days. I do not wash my car at my home nor do I water the plants in my garden as I live in a forest.
My water-sewer bill last month (it comes every two months) was for $196.00. My actual water base charge was $20.00 and the sewer base charge $58.00. The rest are: water consumption charge $15.00 and sewer consumption charge of $43.00. The rest is garbage pickup, storm water and utility taxes totaling $60.00.
I can understand someone putting a windmill up to power a pump for a well so they can water fruits and a garden.
As for the City of Longview, they pay their employees very well and the employees union? I believe it is SEIU.
Everyone on Free Republic should be familiar with that communist led union, correct?
Hope for the best for him, but expect the worst. The locals have the best lawyers the taxpayers can afford and all the time in the world to drag it out for years. Unless the guy is independently wealthy, they will out-money and out-lawyer him. My guess is that they will get an administrative ruling (like the EPA) and get an order to tear the windmill down before any court action can be taken.
The Peoples Republic of Washington can be an obnoxious place. Beautiful state that is going to tax itself out of existence.
I bought out on acreage and the closest neighbor is about 1000 feet downhill from us. Would like to have purchased a large and efficient outdoor wood boiler to heat the house/garage/barn with wood using a large water reservoir to hold the heat.
Washington is one of two states that have banned outdoor wood boilers. I understand banning them in areas with a certain population density because people in trailer parks might burn green wood and trash in them and smog up the neighborhood. I don’t support that. However, any particulate matter I generated would be minimal burning dry seasoned wood and it certainly would not impact my neighbors. Using their own calculations, the Garn wood boiler would emit half the allowable particulate over a 24 hour period. Instead of calculating it that way, they assume the boiler burns non-stop and they won’t make allowances for rural property. The model I wanted, a Garn, is only burned once a day for 120 minutes at most in the coldest part of winter. You only have to burn every few days in the summer to keep hot water. It’s much cleaner than a fireplace and way more efficient.
$10,000 fine if they catch you with one here. However, I can burn brush piles all day long on my property. Meanwhile, my neighbors a few miles away in Idaho can have all the wood boilers they want on their property. Go figure...
I could be saving a huge amount of money by using one of these things for my hot water and heat. It makes me wonder if they ban them in rural areas for tax reasons and why do they dictate so much of what we can do in Eastern Washington from the coast? Oregon is the same way.
I share this gentleman’s outrage and wish him well. I hope they vote out all the bums in city hall that support this harassment.
We ceased owning our land as soon as the government put a tax on it.....we are renting it from the government...the rent goes up every year....
the last house I lived in I put in a water sprinkly system, to avoid sewer tax on watering my land I had a seperate meter put in for only the sprinkling system...no sewer tax on that system...cut my bill in 1/2 of doing that.
Well, come on down to the suburbs south of Houston. My water bill is never higher than $33.00 a month. We have awesome flood control, I have a sprinkler system and water my yard every other day most of the year, take long showers, run the dishwasher daily and do lots of loads of laundry. Also covers twice weekly trash pick-up and I can put my trash out in plastic trash bags if I choose. Our flood control district also has added numerous parks and playgrounds throughout our area and we have two neighborhood pools.
HA..here in the Northwest they tax and fee charge us on EVERYTHING....every year they have to CHECK our SPRINKLER valve or some such thing....costs, oh, something like $30...that on top of sewer charge (flat) and water....and we live in a place where they’d probably tax the rain if they could figure out how to do it...which I’m sure they are working on, although I think that’s part of what the “sewer charge” is about.
It’s probably the backflow prevention assembly on the sprinkler system, from the description. State law requires annual testing. It keeps the bad water in your sprinkler system from getting sucked back into the water supply system and making everyone sick.
Yeah, that’s it...I’d like to get rid of it...we really don’t use the sprinklers...they were installed by the builder...for this spec house.
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