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Fire Walk With Me
(38,893 posts)ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
.
and now Jeb Bush is stckin' his nose in
Lawdy knows, USA ain't been making good choices for their Presidents since Kennedy
JFK was the most recent one who had BALLS
and they whacked him
KansDem
(28,498 posts)...over the largest fresh-water aquifer in that region.
They want to be the "Saudis of water."
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)this is a guy who is diverting almost all the water on his property for his own use.
i thought water going to the rivers was to serve a purpose, nature, etc.
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts),
,
,
He isn't diverting a river or anything
Where do you think the water in YOUR house comes from?
Hell - we suck it out of polluted lakes filled with our own crap,
pour dozens of chemicals into it to make it "safe".
So some people take clean water from the sky
big frikken deal!
sheesh!
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)if the water that fills their rivers is prevented from ever reaching the rivers?
just because other people and companies abuse these things doesn't make it okay for him.
by the way, an environmentalist would not say that doing what he is doing is no big frikken deal.
just saying.
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
.
A human doesn't use that much water - heck if ya don't collect it (rainwater) it mostly evaporates anyways!
The amount of water a family would use collecting it from the skies(which they have being doing for MILLENNIUMS by the way)
won't affect the fish
Google "cisterns"
It's a method of collecting water(necessary for life) that was practiced before the birth of Christ
educate yourself
well here - I did the Google for ya . .
"Waterproof lime plaster cisterns in the floors of houses are features of Neolithic village sites of the Levant at, for instance, Ramad and Lebwe,[2] and by the late fourth millennium BC, as at Jawa in northeastern Lebanon, cisterns are essential elements of emerging water management techniques in dry-land farming communities.[3]
GET IT??
"fourth millennium BC" - that's 6 thousand years ago . . .
If you REALLY want to know more about this
CHECK THE LINK BELOW
http://www.google.ca/#hl=en&newwindow=1&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&q=cisterns&oq=cisterns&gs_l=hp.3..0l10.4866.4866.1.7407.1.1.0.0.0.0.163.163.0j1.1.0.les%3B..0.0...1c.2.5.hp.5cGtyRN6RlY&psj=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.43287494,d.aWc&fp=581d3ae9b21a9c25&biw=1011&bih=649
Educate yourself before your next response
please
KT2000
(20,604 posts)amount of water that is supposed to provide areas of watershed to support wildlife, plants and replenish the water table. That water table supports all manner of life. The support that water provides extends well beyond the man's property. It is part of a huge ecological system.
As I recall the man intentionally broke the law.
Did you see a photo of the man's holding pond?
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)stop picking on the poor guy who just wants the water from the sky!
he must be REALLY thirsty, that Mr. Harrington.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)You're hitching your activist wagon to the wrong star here. He wasn't just "collecting" rain water. He was diverting huge existing flows from his neighbors property to his own, then profiting off them mightily by turning his stolen water into a recreation space. You're just wrong here.
dbackjon
(6,578 posts)While the concerns about casual rainwater usage are real, you blow any credibility by defending the man in Oregon - he illegally damned creeks - not just little farm ponds, but good sized resevoirs.
Know the difference before you start defending him.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)Then what the hell are you allowed to own? A parched acre of dirt, and only the top two feet of that?
He wasn't brought up on charges for environmental damage; he was brought up on charges for hording water a company wanted to horde.
Water is being grabbed worldwide, by soon-to-be monopolies. It's going to turn into big business in a decade. If one guy diverts his water, at least you might expect other people make other decisions. If a monopoly grabs everybody's water, regardless of ownership of the land, then you can expect the fish to die at its whims.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)I don't understand WTF you mean. Do you mean it's absurd that private property, lacking all emotions, cares about anything? I totally agree, but then your making a straw man of my argument. Do you think private property doesn't concern nature? It certainly does when you're talking about land, which is a naturally occurring itself, but that's so obvious, I don't know why you'd write WTF as though it's a rebuttal.
Or maybe you just want me to clarify my point. If so, I need a question that's more specific.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)you seem to think that your ownership of property entitles you to exploit it and that this will not harm the environment.
that's probably the most anti environmental idea i've seen posted at DU.
sendero
(28,552 posts)... than any commercial interest does, that's for sure.
I'm glad I build my 1 acre pond before this sort of idiot law got passed in my state.
The idea that any entity is entitled to all the rain that falls is ridiculous. Soon you will be supporting a tax on air.
Blanks
(4,835 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)
bigtree
(86,016 posts). . . you can bet on it.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)are the things creating those ponds naturally there as an original part of his environment or were they constructed?
is the creek and the water that flows in it a natural part of the environment?
by impounding the water did he make the creek more or less like it's historical state?
galileoreloaded
(2,571 posts)they are a personal diversion of natural resources.
i dare ya.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)of the argument you are responding to.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)The natural news URL tipped me off that this was probably Ron Paul-esque spin. They are huge health woo.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)But there's a comment in the posts that made me laugh out loud. A poster says "God damn, they roofless!"
Roofless. LOL. I thought I had seen everything on the Internets.
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Roofless.
I thought, "They're collecting rainwater in a house?"
Catherina
(35,568 posts)Synopsis
The fresh clean water pouring freely from your spigot, shower head and garden hose isn't just a gift of Mother Nature. It's fast becoming a profit center. Savvy businessmen have been buying up water sources across America, hoping that one day our most precious resource will become their route to riches. Already, a few multinational companies have cornered the water market in countries like France and England, reaping billions in profit.
But what are the consequences of treating life-sustaining water as just another commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder? To find out, NOW teamed up with the new series FRONTLINE WORLD and sent producer David Murdock and THE NEW YORKER's William Finnegan to Cochabamba, Bolivia, where a fight broke out between the citizens who depend on water and a multinational corporation that depends upon it for profit...
http://www.pbs.org/now/science/bolivia.html
Cochabamba is a town of 800,000 situated high in the Andes Mountains of Bolivia. Two years ago, a popular protest there turned into a deadly riot. The army battled civilians in the streets on and off for three months, hundreds were arrested, a seventeen year-old boy was shot and killed, the government of Bolivia nearly collapsed. The issue was water.
The spark was privatization. A private consortium, dominated by the Bechtel Corporation of San Francisco, had taken over Cochabamba's water system and raised water rates. Protesters blamed Bechtel for trying to "lease the rain."
NEW YORKER writer William Finnegan traveled to Cochabamba to learn about the water war and to see what lessons could be drawn about privatization, globalization and the growing anger in Latin America over economic inequality.
Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. 70% of its people live below the poverty line. Nearly one child in ten dies before the age of five. The Bolivian economy, never strong, was wrecked by hyperinflation in the 1980s.
Desperate for relief, Bolivia has been faithfully following the dictates of the international lending community for the past fifteen years -- selling its airline, railroads, mines and electric company to private -- usually foreign-controlled -- companies. The economic shock therapy tamed inflation but led to severe recession and massive unemployment.
In the 1990s, Bolivia, under pressure from the United States, eradicated its most lucrative export - coca - the leaf that is used for cocaine.
"Drugs, illegal as they may be, they were 3% of the GDP, 18% of exports," Luis Quiroga, Bolivia's vice president during the water war, tells Finnegan. "Bad as it was, damaging as it was, if you look at it from a purely business standpoint…It [the drug trade] was Milton Friedman heaven: all privately run, no taxation, no regulation and in essence -- if you want to look at it cynically -- duty free access to markets," observes Quiroga, who is now Bolivia's president.
Politicians like Quiroga fully supported the eradication of coca, but the loss of drug money made the country even more dependent on international financial institutions like the World Bank. The Bank advised the country to continue selling its remaining assets, including water.
OSCAR OLIVERA: [translated] It’s not that Bechtel tried to do it. They did it. They increased the charges for water, the cost of water, by 300%, so that every family had to pay, for this water service, one-fifth of their income.
AMY GOODMAN: How did they get control of the water? I mean, here, you turn on the tap. You don’t pay.
OSCAR OLIVERA: [translated] The government, under a law that was passed, conceded control of the water under a monopoly to Bechtel in a certain area. So that means that Bechtel tried to charge a fee and had the monopoly power over a very basic necessity for people. The law said even that people had to ask, had to obtain a permit to collect rainwater. That means that even rainwater was privatized. The most serious thing was that indigenous communities and farming communities, who for years had their own water rights, those water sources were converted into property that could be bought and sold by international corporations.
In confronting that situation, the people rose up, confronted Bechtel, and during five months of mobilization, managed to defeat Bechtel, breach the contract and change the law. But the most important thing — and we need to remind Evo Morales of that today — was that that victory of the people in Cochabamba was the reason why Evo Morales could be president today. If that uprising in 2000 had not ended in a popular victory, Evo Morales today would not be the president.
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/10/5/bolivian_activist_oscar_olivera_on_bechtels
We be sick puppies indeed.
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
.
from your post - highlights bolding are mine
"It’s not that Bechtel tried to do it.
They did it.
They increased the charges for water, the cost of water, by 300%, so that every family had to pay, for this water service,
one-fifth of their income."
- - - -
now
USA is doing it to their own taxpayers . . .
Am I surprised?
no
disgusted?
yes
Catherina
(35,568 posts)no
disgusted?
yes
But we'll sit down and take it because we've been so thoroughly conditioned to bow down to the almighty god of profit.
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
.
well
not all of us
but way too many
(sigh)
Marr
(20,317 posts)
Knightraven
(268 posts)You can't harvest rainwater and you must pay ever increasing prices for it.
JCMach1
(27,590 posts)water rights in the West have been controlled for a long time. Maybe the guy should have read his deed?
Water is a HUGE issue, but this guy's case should not be used as an example of what is wrong...
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
.
that's why I put them there -
"this guy's case should not be used as an example of what is wrong" -
I agree
- but I wasn't gonna make a post so long that no one would read it
check the other links
dbackjon
(6,578 posts)You need to edit the Oregon man out of your post.
He clearly was in the wrong. Any rational person who understands western water law knows that.
He knows it. He is a bully that is the worst sort of person.
wickerwoman
(5,662 posts)I don't know the specifics in this case, but I know in some parts of that country, stagnant water in an open barrel can be a no-no because it breeds microbes like crazy and provides hatching grounds for mosquitoes. Rainwater run-off can also collect heavy metals and animal feces.
Then there's the issue of groundwater and recharging of aquifers.
Again, I'm not sure what the issue was here but I suspect there's more to the story than evil fascist local government jails eco-pioneer for the hell of it.
Response to Post removed (Original post)
guyton This message was self-deleted by its author.
Robb
(39,665 posts)Water is a spoken-for resource here; there are now exemptions for some which are subject to a permitting process.
But no, most people still are not allowed to store rainwater for later use.
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)when it comes through your roof and damages your property?
ConcernedCanuk
(13,509 posts).
.
.
might be a bit of a quandary
'specially if ya sue the wrong one . . .
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)What if you have a metal roof and you fall off when you're shoveling the snow and it rains? Water makes a metal roof slippery, you know?
I haven't fallen off yet, but if I could sue these assholes who think they own the rain, it might be worth it....
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)When you have natural gas bubbling up in your water well and you go to the Production Company they say "thats not our gas."
If you tell them, "O.K. then I am going to start collecting it and using it."
They say, "You can't do that. That is our gas."
crazy homeless guy
(80 posts)You receive LEED points for collecting rainwater and using it throughout your property. LEED is the USGBC's rating system for how environmentally friendly your building is.
http://new.usgbc.org/search/rainwater?page=1
Though I think the LEED credit is for using rainwater in a natural way on site, which would not be washing cars.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)and I'm not in any business associated with water.
1) yes, i see no issue with collecting rainwater from one's roof to use for domestic purposes on a modest sized house.
2) the project here is a multiple acre situation where the person is collecting water in several ponds on his land, water that would augment the flow, cool the water of the stream, speed it's flow and make it more suitable for it's creatures.
his retaining so much water on his property (in ponds that warm in the sun) are likely degrading the stream near his property in terms of temperature and flow.
3) that others abuse our land, streams and environment doesn't mean that this activity here is not in and of itself harmful. it absolutely can be.
like i said, if one is collecting water from one's roof on a modest sized house to use for domestic use, i don't think that can be argued, though some might. but when you start retaining it for other reasons, if it's large enough, or if those ponds grow and discharge warm water to the cold stream, the whole situation changes, and not in a good way.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)the guy was making man-made trout ponds, fucking with the larger watershed. It is legal in Oregon to "collect rainwater". That's not what this guy was doing. 13 Million Gallons isn't "just collecting rainwater"
prior thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021101470
He was basically making his own man-made lake. Which, I don't know, maybe I'm some insane authoritarian but I can see why such a thing might be subject to local zoning or environmental law.
He's a hero of the "it's my land, I should be able to dump nuclear waste on it" types.
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)So, if rain falls on your neighbors land somewhere... and makes it's way to yours - and you use it to, say, water your plants... can the neighbor sue you for stealing his rain? Or is the rain government or corporate property? I mean, all these years my parents have been stealing rain and didn't even know it. Damned thieves!
Another question... so, uh, who owns the clouds?
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)you're comparing water from rain naturally watering sections of land through a combination of falling rain and some runoff, occurring naturally...
with...
someone who is impounding and diverting flow at such a scale that multiple ponds are created holding far, far more water than the example of your parents.
if we can't keep those distinctions, if scale and the fact of substantial construction of diversion or impoundment facilities are immaterial, then this issue can't even be discussed.
and if that's your attitude, you won't be taken seriously by environmentalists.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Because, you know, that's like a totally rational argument.
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)If you want a serious reply.... So someone used a LOT of rainwater to create ponds, which resulted in what, exactly? Disaster? Mass hysteria? Honest discussion? A rational response? Or was it, instead, legal penalties, the reasoning being that he didn't own the rainwater. As if anyone can own rainwater!
"According to officials with the Medford Water Commission, the water on Harrington's property, whether it came from the sky or not, is considered a tributary of the nearby Crowfoot Creek. Thus it is subject to a 1925 law, giving Medford Water Commission full ownership and rights to the water."
Now replace Medford Water Commission with the Nestle Company, with Coke, with Pepsi. These companies are making huge grabs at buying up the worlds water resources, rather successfully. My point, my argument, is that these companies will continue to screw us over by selling us our own rainwater now, as if we didn't have a twisted enough system already. They own powerful influence within Washington via lobbyists - and undoubtedly convince many environmentalists that their "owned water" is safer because it is somehow better regulated. Perhaps because it creates jobs, or some such thing.
All of that said, I have no interest in being taken seriously by anyone who thinks that rainwater can be somehow owned. The very notion is ridiculous, absurdly greedy, pathetic, and symptomatic of a Nation gone absolutely insane with greed and capitalism.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)by your logic.
congratulations.
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)No. The government can and should regulate to protect the environment. That is all that had to happen here, environmental laws cited as the reason why this man couldn't do what he was doing, then penalties to follow if he continued. Instead, it's about "ownership" - and no one can really own something so natural and simple as rainwater. I suspect that this is what the OP is primarily objecting to as well.
As sources of clean water become more scarce - and those that are still in abundance are purchased by corporations, my concern is that no one will be permitted to so much as collect rainwater in a barrel. The legal reason why will be that some corporation owns the nearby body of water the rainwater will reach - so you will have to pay them for something that should be free. I mean, honestly, how can anyone own water that falls from the sky? The very notion is disturbing.
The future of our water supply, perhaps, in time, ANY water supply, is going to end up in the hands of Pepsi and Coke and similar corporations. There have been plenty of articles on the underground lately pointing out the fact that water is becoming a commodity for these companies. How long before they find some way to make us bleed for every drop?
I was too flippant earlier this morning - and I apologize for that. I really need to sleep more.
demwing
(16,916 posts)If rain water cannot be owned privately, then the government can't protect the environment?
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)be protected.
Javaman
(62,534 posts)amputated.
That doesn't even begin to make any sort of sense.
kas125
(2,472 posts)information about how we can buy the same ones from the town. They are pretty cool, they are big barrels with planters on top and hose connections at the bottom.
Rhiannon12866
(206,743 posts)
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)and more and more municipalities and states are fighting people's abilities to go off-grid. I'm not saying that's the situation in this case, I think the guy went a bit too far. But in some areas people are getting fined for collecting water in rain barrel's and cisterns. They're getting in trouble (fined) with the health and zoning departments. Many health departments claim rainwater is not potable but tests have actually been run and generally the filtered rainwater is cleaner/purer than what is coming from municipal taps.
The idea that you can do what you want on land you own needs to be gotten over. You can't just do anything on "your" land, that went away after the initial land grabs in the 1800's. Hell, most places you have to meet a specific size of residence before you can get permits to build (I was looking into shipping container homes and often one shipping container on your land was not large enough to get permits for). People who want to leave a smaller footprint are now researching specific municipalities in which to buy land that have lax zoning requirements.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)and Monsanto.
and Archer Daniels Midland.
do we need to throw out all the environmental laws because you think that controlling what you do on your land "needs to be gotten over"?
we usually agree on most issues but you've just adopted the Republican/"takings" position on environmental regulation on this issue.
i could read what you concluded with in libertarian and astroturfing anti-green publications paid for by the same people that have sued to stop our environmental laws.
which is why you should reconsider your position.
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)but I think there are some things that can be done that causes less environmental damage. For example, the ability to collect rainwater. I'm not suggesting that doing it on the scale this guy was doing it on is acceptable but using the argument that collecting rainwater is a health hazard instead of creating/using environmental laws to regulate how much and how it can be used. Factory farming does more damage to the environment than a household collecting rainwater. When you think of the chemicals that go into to treating water for communities, you have to think of the environmental cost of that too. Every modern thing we do hurts the environment, at this point, IMO, it's about what's less harmful to the environment. For example, if I want to purchase a piece of land and a shipping container and live in that, the municipality that I purchase land in shouldn't be able to tell my structure is TOO small to qualify as a livable structure. It's okay to rent a 500 sq. ft. apartment but it's not okay to own a piece of land that has an 800 sq. ft. shipping container on it. If that's libertarian thinking or Republican "takings" then I guess I'm not as liberal as I thought I was because I think these huge mcmansions are worse for the environment than smaller, sustainable/green dwellings.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)
madokie
(51,076 posts)I think the intent of the law is to keep a land owner from damming up a stream and collecting all the water he can until his pond/lake is full depriving the next person downstream from the opportunity to utilize some of that water too. Now the law is being mis interpreted into this monster that is
my 2 cents anyway
Recursion
(56,582 posts)and nobody bothers reading the whole article.
This is more right-wing BS trying to delegitimize wetlands protection. Don't fall for it. You can still collect rainwater; you can't completely dry out the wetlands downstream of your property.
Earth_First
(14,910 posts)This is not the same as collecting the runoff from a rainstorm...
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Yeah, you need permits to make lakes on your property. File this under "fucking duh"
hatrack
(59,602 posts)He built multiple dams to divert water from downstream users. You are aware, I trust, that water law in the American west is kind of a big deal?
End of story.
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)I use the water for my plants. I don't think they mean that.
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)It's a matter of Western water rights law: Medford has had water rights to that basin since 1925
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)
DiverDave
(4,892 posts)it rains all the goddamned time.
He wasnt stealing.
Not when the next rainfall could replace what he used.
Get a life, it rains ALOT there.
I know I grew up in the area and stayed many days inside because of rain.
This was a company grabbing something they never should have gotten control of in the first place.
hatrack
(59,602 posts)The fact that the area has a strongly seasonal rainfall pattern probably has a lot to do with restrictions on dams and diversions.
http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/97524
http://www.areavibes.com/eagle+point-or/weather/
4Q2u2
(1,406 posts)shows so similar intent. After the devastation in Haiti, the drug gangs were pretty much out of business. So after a short time they devised a new money making scheme. The started putting muscle around public water access points and charging money for the water.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)
Mike Adams is a right-wing libertarian piece of shit. Why are you bringing his special brand of crazy to DU?
Sid
talkingmime
(2,173 posts)That's just silly.
Peace Patriot
(24,010 posts)I recced it too fast, thinking it was a Bechtel/Bolivia situation come home to haunt us. I failed to notice that it was "natural news" (which is very unnatural, corporate-friendly disinformation).
Very clever of the poster to dress this disinformation up as leftist/progressive by mentioning, um, Betel/in Mexico?, and even getting that all wrong, as if it was just a casual remark.
I don't think it was.
Looking at this guy's LAKES ("ponds," my ass) and also at the clearcuts on that property, I would guess that he's already in violation of dozens of state and federal environmental laws, and, what is even more important, environmental principles. The land is already very stressed, which means that fish, bird and other extinctions are already well under way. The land is degraded, which also means that the watersheds and the creeks and rivers that feed them are already degraded--already too warm for some fish and aquatic life, already too few trees, already possibly polluted, at least with sediment, during the rainy season. To add further stresses to this environment--reducing the water available downstream, landscaping lakes into this environment where trees and other plants, and wildlife, once lived, boating in it (possibly polluting it), and other such impacts violate vital environmental principles, not just the rights of the public to downstream water itself, but the rights of the public to biodiversity (to fish, birds, etc.) and ultimately to a viable planet, everywhere.
It's possible that this man did not clearcut this property (in the checkerboard fashion we see in the photo). Some corporation likely did that, significantly degraded the property and thus sold it. This has happened time and again in California, Oregon and Washington. It is endemic to the region. Corporations degrade the forest, the rivers and the wildlife to a horrible degree, for quick profit, then sell out to some kind of development or other. Maybe he's not responsible for all that, but he is NOW responsible for those past impacts. Maybe his is a better use than, say, tract houses, but he is STILL responsible to and for the CURRENT conditions of the land and its resources--including fish, birds and other wildlife that know no boundaries, and the trees, shrubs, insects, microbes and everything upon which the wildlife depends, and on which both local communities and the entire planet depend.
There is no such thing as "a king in his castle." A "king" dies--withers away--alone in his castle, without the surrounding community to support him. It is completely irresponsible to think otherwise, to think that whatever you do on your "property"--an artificial creation of government, in the first place--is "nobody else's business." Sorry, but healthy fish, bird and other wildlife populations, healthy watersheds and a viable planet ARE my business and the business of all of us and that of our government when it is acting in our interest and the good all.
You cannot parcel these things up. Nature simply doesn't work that way. And you cannot separate the concept of "rainwater" from the lands over which clouds collect and move and into which rainwater falls. The clouds and all of their properties, the water in all of its forms, and the life that springs up from the ground, in response to sunlight, rain and fog, and soil nutrients, evolving over millions of years, are all one complex ecology, related to every other micro-climate in the vicinity, AND to wildlife populations that may migrate from thousands of miles away, from complex ecologies and micro-climates at the other end of their travels.
If you come in and damn up lakes, you are profoundly impacting that ecology. If you do it to an already stressed environment, your impacts multiply exponentially.
This is what public water commissions have learned over the last half century. To protect the water that they are obliged to provide for the public good, they MUST protect the environment in which the water accumulate and flows--the watersheds, the drainage systems--or the consequences can be dire, in dried up watersheds, droughts and other disasters. And the fish, birds and other wildlife are INDICATORS of the health of the watershed. The wildlife is (supposedly) protected by other, related laws--for its own sake, as a value to human life and to our society (and, as a matter of constitutional fact, in Bolivia and Ecuador nowadays, for its own sake alone--for Mother Nature's right to exist and prosper). But water commissions in particular don't idly count fish, for instance, for something to do, or because they like meddling in someone else's business. They MUST look at the gages of watershed health and viability.
To sum up, this man is NOT just using rainwater. He is vacuuming up GROUNDWATER--rain in the ground, rain that filters down through the watersheds and their greenery and that flows under the ground in aquifers. He doesn't have a tunnel in the sky that just captures rain within his lakes' boundaries.
This is far, far different from peasants in Bolivia collecting rainwater in a barrel--and Bechtel trying to collect money from the poorest of the poor for doing so. And in purpose and scale, it is far different even from directing rainwater, via aqueducts or natural channels, into peasant gardens or farmlands. Peasants don't farm on the scale of Chevron or Monsanto or Chiquita. And they furthermore tend to have respect--based on thousand year old knowledge and traditions--for the resources they use. Even if they do something on a fairly large scale, for them, they don't disrupt natural cycles and ecosystems, the way transglobal corporations do.
There is simply no comparison between this man's situation and the poor people in Bolivia who got charged for collecting rainwater. Bechtel was not trying to save watersheds. It was merely profiteering. The authorities who came down on this man's lakes are charged with protecting watersheds. This is not to say that corporations don't interfere--by way of privatization and profiteering--in the process of public water protection. They do! But that is no reason to end public water protection. It is a reason to end Corporate Rule.
This post supports Corporate Rule, by trying to equate public water protection with oppression. It is aimed at ending such public good activity and privatizing everything. And it represents one of the unholiest alliances in the world, and one that is KILLING OUR PLANET--the alliance between wealthy private landowners and transglobal corporations that promotes this myth of "the king in his castle" in order to hoodwink very small landowners and homeowners, and non-wealthy people, into supporting their actually insane polices of deregulation. This unholy alliance is, of course, sucking at the public tit, all the while, as they preach "rugged individualism" and puny-minded selfishness and "small government" (read: no government!). Sucking in your tax dollars and mine, in all manner of subsidies and tax breaks, sucking off the infrastructure that we as a people created as a public good, and robbing us blind in numerous ways.
I was glad when DU got rid of the unrec function. It really wasn't very useful and I wouldn't want it back--but I hereby take back my rec of this post. It is Corporate propaganda, sneakily parading as something else.
