It's illegal to have a rain barrel in Colorado, but that may be about to change

[backscatter712]

29. Colorado is a semi-arid state, so water is a scarce and valuable resource.

Political squabbling over water has been a feature of Colorado's history since before it became a state.

The water laws here are byzantine, and interests from farmers and ranchers to industries to municipal water suppliers guard their water rights jealously. We have senior and junior water rights, depending on the original year that water sources were spoken for, dating back to 1865. There are a lot of rules - "Use it or lose it", requirements of beneficial use, powers of eminent domain to create ditches and waterways to move water from one place to another, etc. etc. etc.

It's also why the Rocky Mountains have a bunch of dams, tunnels, and waterways that were built over the last hundred years - to bring water from the mountains to the farms and cities. People take it for granted that they can turn on their tap and get a glass of water whenever they want, but there's a lot of infrastructure that made that possible.

As for big water users, like farmers, it's more difficult. Even in good years, they fight for water. In drought years, there's not enough water to go around - if you have senior water rights (which aren't cheap), you get to water your crops first. If your water rights are junior, you get water after the senior rightsholders are done. If the water runs out, too bad.

So, when a drought comes, a political fist fight is coming with it. The farmers and other big water rights holders oppose the rainbarrel bill because in their mind, it's "stealing".

One of the reasons why fracking is so controversial is because of the water - there's the potential for contamination of underground reservoirs, there's the problem with wastewater from fracking operations having all sorts of nasty shit in it, and the frackers use a LOT of water, that the farmers want, Sure the oil and gas guys say "Hey, no problem, we purify the water when we're done with it, you can use it downstream." Suuuuuure you do...

In drought years, we're one step away from the Fremen in Dune.