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 ...
“How do N.M.’s laws about water storage compare to Oregon’s?”
The laws are quite complex, and I’d imagine fairly similar through out the west. Here, there are different water districts divided up by drainages and maybe even aquifers. An acre water right varies in size in each district. That ‘size’ has traditionally been allocated to a set dimension on a determined parcel of land. More recently, if a person is using a well for irrigation, the state is requiring meters to be installed. Any earthen tank or holding pond in N.M. requires water rights. The older the water right, the more seniority it has in times of drought when surface irrigation water is in short supply. Certain irrigation/water districts here do not even allow the capture of water off a roof into barrels.
On a topic that would require its own thread, the Arizona Water Settlements Act decision is soon approaching, which will determine wether or not a huge amount of water will remain in the Gila River basin for use in N.M. or be allowed to flow down river until it dries up and goes subsurface in Arizona. The Gang Greens want the river to go unused, and have pretty much threatened monkey wrenching, and perhaps violence if any attempt is made to capture the water during flood stage, and divert it to large holding ponds for later use.
If the guy was damning up a river, then he’s fair game. If he’s simply made some ponds on his property, then sorry but this is big government at it’s most moronic. And anyone who tries to defend it, well they’re just as moronic.
It isn’t silly to object to this. It’s insane not to.
Any idea how much of the land surface of Oregon is privately owned. I’ll bet it’s less than 10%. So the state can’t get by with runoff from 90% of the land? Really?
This all boils down to a revenue issue. Some government entity doesn’t think they’re getting paid enough for the water this guy might use.
F ‘em!
Yes, over 68%.
I’ll bet it’s less than 10%.
Nope.
So the state can’t get by with runoff from 90% of the land?
Oregon State owns less than 5%. The divisions of the Federal Government have more.
How true. I've owned 3 very nice houses/homes. The crap I went through to just improve my properties were just that: CRAP
I now rent from a good landlord and it will be that until I die. I no longer deal with government thieves, except them taxing my freaking SSI.(Gee, I thought that was already a tax. Now I'm getting taxed on my tax...go figure.)
FMCDH(BITS)
Where do you live? Because in the western part of the nation, water rights are serious, and part of a real property’s deed. People used to hanged for violations.
The original land holders in southern Oregon (where this is located) were probably farmers or ranchers. They protected their water rights because it mattered greatly in the success of their businesses. There is NOTHING moronic about it.
This man damned up a tributary to a river. He broke the law.
He could take the issue to SCOTUS, but I doubt it will get out of State courts, as it is a State of Oregon issue.
Thank you for the response. I was surprised to be that far off.
Look the average rainfall in this man’s home town is about 26 inches per year. Over 80,000 gallons of water falls on a city lot of 100 x 50 feet.
If he owns ten acres, he’ll see 2.11 acre feet of water fall on his property each year. That in excess of 700,000 gallons of water.
So what if he did set up three ponds to capture water of the hillside. That wouldn’t mean that each pond would be filled up over and over again. Each pond when full would lose some water by evaporation, but mostly the ponds would be topped off each year.
This guy couldn’t possibly use the total amount of water falling on his property each year. Even if he did, how may people are going to do that? Perhaps one out of 1,000 people would on a larger property.
If the average rainfall is 26 inches per year, Oregon should have no problem with water shortages at all.
In my area, almost nobody captures water, even as short as water is here. Would 25% of Oregonians capture water if they could? I doubt it. Perhaps you can produce figures there also. If so, I’d like to see them.
I still say that government is merely tossing it’s weight around, as governments are want to do.
Putting this man in jail like this? Simply draconian.
I’ll bet the guy doesn’t capture more than 5% of the water falling on his property.
Now, lets talk about how much water flows into the ocean, off Oregon’s coast.
Slamming the prison door on this guy, is a rather strange thing to do if hundreds of millions, perhaps many billions of gallons of fresh water flow into the ocean each year.
Relax Francis.... this is from a 1925 law. I highly doubt Oregon was a hotbed of Marxist activity in 1925.
Okay, I said earlier if he damned up a river, then I think he was fair game. Now, exactly what does this tributary consist of? Is it a small stream that only exists after a rainfall, and is dry most of the time in-between?
You tell me what happens when a pond gets full. Oh that’s right, the water goes right back to flowing. The interruption only occurs part of the time as the pond fills. The first rain each year, the pond is full, the water flows. Most of the time the water still continues to flow.
Who is really getting injured here? Show me a farmer that can’t grow a crop on 26 inches of rainfall per year. And all the people that could be injured are going to be down-hill, closer to the coast and will get in excess of that 26 inches.
As for water shortages in the west, they are consistent with inland more desert regions. They are not consistant with areas getting 26 inches of rain or more per year.
If we’re talking about inland Oregan, inland California, inland parts of Washington, then fine. This isn’t a dessert condition and it’s all about control, not a real need to conserve.
I made a mistake on this sentence. It severely understated the amount of acre feet of water that would fall on this guy’s land.
As stated: If he owns ten acres, he’ll see 2.11 acre feet of water fall on his property each year. That in excess of 700,000 gallons of water.
Actually if he owned ten acres, he would see about 22.11 acre feet of water fall on his land. Than would be in excess of seven million gallons of water.
“People used to hanged for violations.”
The irrigation ditches along the Gila River were originally build using mule teams, dynamite, and a lot of sweat. People’s livelihood depended on that water. During the dry months when water becomes scarce, the ditches go on ‘turns’ so everybody gets their fair share, divided up by how long one gets to use the water in the ditch. The more water rights a person owns, the more time allocated to water. Many a person was shot at, and some killed, for stealing water. Everybody was/is in the same predicament during low flow. Livestock needs to drink and crops get thirsty. It truly does seem to be the logical way for a community to get along. Water is still worth much more than the land here.
Ha!!
Oh, okay.
I don’t know anything about that.
BTW, I don’t know where you are coming from on this issue, at least not at the point when I made my “silly” remark (I do now), but I live in Texas, and we don’t have those kind of laws. Sounds absurd and detrimental to the land owner, because when judgment is left up to government boards and other bureaucratic and authoritative offices, there will always be injustice and favortism, corruption, and the love of money and power that will motivate their decisions. Now, we do have that in Texas.
In 1925????
Review your history.
Read the article. He was charged based on a 1925 law.
Read my words - that is PRECISELY what I said.
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