I see a few things in the news here and there that give me pause, sometimes a head shake. This one takes the cake for moronicity! (I know that is not a word, K? Just pretend!)
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.
Perhaps I am just reading this article wrong, so I read further…
“If you try to collect rainwater, well, that water really belongs to someone else,” said Doug Kemper, executive director of the Colorado Water Congress. “We get into a very detailed accounting on every little drop.”
What?
There is a lot going on there, and the article goes on to describe how the rivers are replenished with the water, and how if EVERYONE collected rainwater then the river would dry up.
Okay, I’ll bite into your logic, Doug. See, if the insidious owner is collecting rainwater, he or she is not hording it, are they? Chances are they would be using it for their garden. Hmm… returning it to the ground, no?
This has more to do with money, Frank Jaeger believes. See, they have paid for that resource. Perhaps they can use the money to collect the rainwater before those pesky gardeners have a chance?
If an idiotic law was in effect here, I can just say that I would be ignoring it. Boo to you, losers! I AM getting a rain barrel, and you and the Hydro company can’t stop me until you pull the barrel hoops from my cold, dead, garden-dirt laden fingers.
~ Welldonechef
