Who owns Colorado's rainwater?

[WeDidIt]

Who owns Colorado's rainwater?

Environmentalists and others like to gather it in containers for use in drier times. But state law says it belongs to those who bought the rights to waterways.
By Nicholas Riccardi
March 18, 2009

Reporting from Denver -- Every time it rains here, Kris Holstrom knowingly breaks the law.

Holstrom's violation is the fancifully painted 55-gallon buckets underneath the gutters of her farmhouse on a mesa 15 miles from the resort town of Telluride. The barrels catch rain and snowmelt, which Holstrom uses to irrigate the small vegetable garden she and her husband maintain.

But according to the state of Colorado, the rain that falls on Holstrom's property is not hers to keep. It should be allowed to fall to the ground and flow unimpeded into surrounding creeks and streams, the law states, to become the property of farmers, ranchers, developers and water agencies that have bought the rights to those waterways.

What Holstrom does is called rainwater harvesting. It's a practice that dates back to the dawn of civilization, and is increasingly in vogue among environmentalists and others who pursue sustainable lifestyles. They collect varying amounts of water, depending on the rainfall and the vessels they collect it in. The only risk involved is losing it to evaporation. Or running afoul of Western states' water laws.

Those laws, some of them more than a century old, have governed the development of the region since pioneer days.

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When collecting rainwater is outlawed, only outlaws will have rainwater.

Fucking stupid law. It's laws like this that create scofflaws.

[Raineyb]

1. That has got to be one of the stupidest laws ever written!

No doubt written by the lobbyists for whoever runs the water system.

Regards

[WindRiverMan]

7. Probably not.....

More than likely it is an old water law that prevented people from putting ponds, dikes, and catchment basins on their land so that the water could flow unimpeded into the rivers where water right holders used it for irrigation.

[eleny]

8. That's about it. We're part owners of an irrigation lateral

Our property (in Colorado) is one that has the ditch running through it and we pay for the water - even in drought years when there's hardly ever any water or it gets appropriated by more senior rights such as agricultural uses. Our rights go back to 1927.

Water in the west - it's a serious deal.

[tularetom]

2. She better knock that off - every gallon she retains is a gallon that doesn't get to California

Everybody knows that all the rain that falls anywhere in the Rockies should be allowed to runoff into the rivers and eventually find its way to LA. Ms Holstrom better watch out or the CA water cops will be on her ass,

:sarcasm:

[GodDamLiberal]

3. Who owns it if

Who owns it if the rainwater does damage to your house or property?

[BlooInBloo]

4. (shrug) Fine, CO government fuckers. Sue the waterways when you get rain damage.

[Hoopla Phil]

6. Now THAT is an interesting way to look at it? What about flood damage?

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

5. SoCal?

[ConcernedCanuk]

9. It has been said that our next great war will be over water - Dim-Son already did the oil thing . .

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OH

and didn't the Bushes just acquire some land in Paraguay over one of the World's largest aquifers?

hmmmm

:freak:

[DavidDvorkin]

10. A moot point right now

We're not getting any rain. Or snow.