Posted on 07/10/2014 12:14:52 PM PDT by Gunpowder green
A rural Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail and over $1,500 in fines because he had three reservoirs on his property to collect and use rainwater.
Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Ore., says he plans to appeal his conviction in Jackson County (Ore.) Circuit Court on nine misdemeanor charges under a 1925 law for having what state water managers called “three illegal reservoirs” on his property – and for filling the reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff.
“The government is bullying,” Harrington told CNSNews.com in an interview Thursday.
“They’ve just gotten to be big bullies and if you just lay over and die and give up, that just makes them bigger bullies. So, we as Americans, we need to stand on our constitutional rights, on our rights as citizens and hang tough. This is a good country, we’ll prevail,” he said.
The court has given Harrington two weeks to report to the Jackson County Jail to begin serving his sentence.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Did this man trust a judge or did a jury convict him?
Put an open container in your back yard and go to jail. I don’t think even Stalin was that inventive.
The mistake is thinking that we really have private property. The first goal of communism is confiscating all private property. We’re almost communist now, especially in oregon, so what you think is your property is really the state’s. They lend it to you, but make you pay for it, and make you pay for taxes on it, and make you pay for insurance, and make you pay for upkeep, but it’s really not yours. You don’t have the right to do what you want on your property.
There are water rights out west. One must get a permit before doing something like he did and prove he has the water rights to his land. No water rights per the property’s deed, you are dead.
In this case, he is lucky to be going to jail for a year.
Rule number one out west - check the land deed to ascertain who has the water rights to the property before buying it.
Evidently, this poor shlub failed to realize that, in a Marxist society, EVERYTHING belongs to The State.
He is allowed to utilize The State’s property only at sufferance.
Collection is not the issue. Impoundment is. Can only retain so much without a water right certificate
By the strict tenets of that law, if you have a swimming pool in your back yard, you’re storing water illegally. Anybody could fill their swimming pool and not chlorinate the water. Illegal by Oregon’s laws.
But the water comes from above, not from the property.
How does that sound?
I collected some rain water today in my dog's bowls...and used it to water some plants.
Take me to jail.
However, note of caution. There's a difference between slight "collecting of water" and creating reservoirs or dams. The common law views creating reservoirs or dams as "abnormally dangerous activity" because of the danger it poses to others. Normally someone doing that is liable for harm if the dam or reservoir brakes no matter how careful the person is. A law limiting this kind of activity is not necessarily unjust.
They do things differently in Oregon.
how much are you allowed to retain/impound without a permit, generally speaking?
This guy had 3 ponds. Didn’t say how big the ponds were, but we’re not talking about a rain barrel here.
You both know where I’m coming from on this issue. Water rights are not new. There is a long history behind their inclusion in real property deeds.
Both of you are talking silly.
“By the strict tenets of that law, if you have a swimming pool in your back yard, you’re storing water illegally. Anybody could fill their swimming pool and not chlorinate the water. Illegal by Oregon’s laws.”
Correct. While ‘proving up’ a water right on a piece of land I own in NM, the state engineer’s office even measured the metal stock tank I have for my animals to include in the usage.
Oregon man was sentenced Wednesday to 30 days in jail...
in July 2012.
I agree with water rights....but generally they are based on flowing water in creeks and rivers. Not run-off.
The heavy rainfall is in the coastal mountains and west slope of the Cascade Mountains. Central Oregon and eastern Oregon have deserts or high deserts with dry scrub most of the year.
The man said he did have a permit to store the water, but that they were arbitrarily retracted.
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