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 ...
Yet companies have to have a “Stormwater Management Plan” in order to comply with pollution controls. Why would that be if the government owns the rainwater?
Bkml
Can you sue the government for failure to control THEIR
water when it moistens YOUR land?
Can you sue the government for failure to control THEIR
water when it moistens YOUR land?
What about adverse possession? (Not quite the same, but it is a long-time pre-existing usage).
Next, the King will impose penalties for poaching his deer
To be fair, they probably didn't vote for the people who passed the law back in 1925 but your point still stands.
The “free” states west of the Mississippi have laws just as intrusive and controlling as those to the east; they just attack freedom differently.
You might want to do some research on the subject. You'd be surprised.
the county didn’t take issue with the pond until Jon sought to grow legal medical cannabis on the land and had to prove there was a viable source of water for the grow operation
But they are looking to use the water to farm..
Yes someone one besides a land owner can own a lands water rights
Let say I own a piece of property including all water rights and all mineral or oil rights
I can sell the water rights to another farm (or are we saying im not free to sell my property or a part of it including in this case my water rights)
And so the mineral and oil rights to another
Then sell the land to even another
The new land owner can not now claim the water and mineral rights because they were already sold previously
Of course this is should all be in the title when you bought the property
So I’m curious that when these people bought this land a few years ago obviously with the intention of using this water for this cannabis farm did they look in the title the see that they didn’t have the water rights
If it’s not there they have a right to go back to title insurance that’s the point of title insurance do make sure you’re free of all of or aware of other claims on the property
The right to buy and sell your property as you see fit..
ironically will create cases down the line when someone else will not own all the right to the property they bought
Because the previous owner they bought it from
Already sold some of the property rights to another
We want to hear from you! Be sure and include your email address on the contact form below if you would like an email response!
http://www.medfordwater.org/Contactus.asp
The issue here is nothing more complex that the water supply for the city of Medford. The landowners in the story wanted to divert water from the Medford water system into irrigation. Nothing more than that.
Water rights sometimes trump everything else.
Just claim the pond is now a wetland and thus federally protected!
lol
Good point. Watch the family remove the pond because the state ordered them to do so and then the US government will come after them because they destroyed “critical habitat” for migratory birds who ‘might’ use the pond.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tell the government to get their water off your land or you’ll start charging them rent.
Libertarianism sometimes will give you an outcome you don’t think should be till you look deeper
It’s Libertarian to say I have complete rights to sell my property as I see fit
So its Libertarian for me to sell a piece of land to one person and the water rights to another ( in this case the government)
So it’s completely Libertarian that later on it can be case that on the land I own..
The water rights of that same land might happen to be own by another (in the case the government)
The people in 1925 probably could not foresee the extent to which the law would be pushed. This is a good object lesson in the law of unintended consequences.
It also validates Law of the Universe #2: Any power that government can abuse will eventually be abused
Amen! They got the government they wanted
This is Oregon remember!
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