Making it illegal to collect rainwater

This is fascinating.  I recently heard Charlie Rose interview Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.  Here's a snippet from the Village Voice about the book:

In The Shock Doctrine, journalist Klein trains her sharp investigator's eye upon the flaws of neoliberal economics. This meticulously researched alternative history, ranging from economist Milton Friedman's "University of Chicago Boys" to George W. Bush, brings Klein's argument into the present. Using stirring reportage, she shows the ways that disasters— unnatural ones like the war in Iraq, and natural ones like the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina—allow governments and multinationals to take advantage of citizen shock and implement corporate-friendly policies: Where once was a Sri Lankan fishing village now stands a luxury resort. The Shock Doctrine aims its 10-foot-long middle finger at the Bush administration and the generations of neocons who've chosen profits over people in war and disaster; the effect is to provide intellectual armor for the now-mainstream anticorporatist crowd.

But what's relevant to our discussion of rain barrels is her mention of what happened in Bolivia.  They privatized their water resources, with U.S. company Bechtel winning the contract, and subsequently outlawed collection of rainwater because it threatened Bechtel's profits.  Here's more on the story.  And here's a little video about it.

Comments

[asdf]

much rainwater collection is already illegal or at least highly regulated in WA state. and in most areas with agriculture I would bet there are similar laws or some sort of legal protection for farmers to buy access to water for irrigation. but our state gov't has said they will not prosecute home owners who are simply installing rain barrels for personal use. they are more interested in regulating commercial use...

here's the first link i could find that talks about 1 specific county: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/nwro/sjc_rwc.html

[Ellis Hollow]

I wonder what the beavers who set up shop in my backyard would think about that? Not sure they'd take down their dams.

Klein has been making the rounds of the progressive radio shows in recent weeks. Sounds like a riveting book.

[jodi]

This is frightening! It alarms me even more because we in Canada have so much fresh water, and greedy corporations would LOVE to get their hands on it, especially some from the US (sorry, my American friends, but it's been a concern for a few years now. Not your fault, but the fault of greedy SOBS like those in this story.)
I wonder how we are to push back against things like this, preferably BEFORE such regulations come to us?

[Bev]

Here too in Colorado it is illegal to collect rainwater, as the city resells it, probably for the same reasons as WA state does.

[Layanee]

Illegal to collect rainwater? Unbelievable! What would the citizens of Bermuda do without rainwater! I like their system of cisterns under the houses and roof collection. It makes sense in water deprived areas. Brings to mind that old nursery rhyme, "Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!" Unbelievable!

[Kathy J, Washington Gardener]

Ah ha! Susan, remember that story idea I told that I accidentally blurted out on a crowded hayride at GWA in OKC with much reaction and inquiry by my fellow garden writers within hearing distance - well, THIS was it - specifically, the increasing laws in the western US states that make home rain collection illegal and my hopes that this trend does NOT spread and gets challenged in court real soon!

[rochy]

The "illegal to collect rainwater" claim is of course completely made-up, as a few minutes of research suffice to show. Apparently, in 2000 a commentator in the Bolivian press (and critic of water privatization) opined that according to the strict provisions of the agreement with the Aguas de Tunari consortium, of which Bechtel was a member, it might even be illegal to collect rainwater. This was never the case.
As of 2005, half of Cochabamba's citizens have no access to the water system. Poor residents in homes with no water lines pay 10 times as much for water as the businesses and relatively wealthy citizens who have access to the water system.
Letting qualified engineers - and not "community activists" - run water utility companies is a good idea. Privatizing scarce resources - like water - is also a good idea, as it provides an incentive to prevent waste. Insisting on keeping a corrupt, wasteful, and ethically unjust system of providing water was, and remains, a bad idea.

[meep]

Rochy, that was the case before the privatization as well. Of course what happened when the prices were hiked was that the cost got passed on to those that didn't have access to the pipes.

[anonymous]

well they should start taxing the ground for rain water collection because that is their biggest contender. but in that case the natural cycle of evaporation and condensation should charge the company for the services it gives. So pretty much their control for this resource is absolutely ridiculous

[Herb]

What next?
Privatize solar energy?
Make it illegal to capture energy from the sun?

[yeahright]

They will get my rain barrel when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

[Alex Gohar]

This is true evil, because it is not done for any reason of water conservation, this is simply one of the world's richest companies from the world's richest nation bleeding a desperately poor people and claiming the water that falls from the sky belongs to them in order to boost their bloated profits

They also confiscated the houses of people who could not pay their water bills and auctioned them

May the heartless bastards rot in hell

[Tom Ness]

My friends from Grand Junction, Colorado have told me that rainwater cisterns are illegal in their county. It's hard to imagine red-blooded Coloradans even letting such a law be passed without tar and feathering the politicians who voted for it. I don't know if it's true -- can anyone else speak for such laws in Colorado or any other state?

I have over 28,000 gallons of cistern storage at my Oregon home. One inch of rain on my shop and house roof equals a fabulous 2,508 gallons of water in the tanks. When I ask visitors how much they think it is, they are typically off by a factor of ten: 250 gallons per inch is a common guess.

During the research for an article on my cistern system the writer spoke with Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to clear up rumors that they were opposed to cistern systems. It turned out that it is open-topped stream impoundments that they frown on as those can have bad affects on a watershed from de-watering or erosian when they inevitably break. But closed-tank cisterns are no problem for ODFW.

Personally, I consider the rain that lands on my roof to be my gift from the heavens and anyone who would deny me is some kind of flim-flam artist with a profit motive. My foresight in building this system now probably will mean that my home will be the last habitable property in the neighborhood in a severe drought. It is also a precious neighborhood emergency asset in the case of wildfire, and the Department of Forestry knows where it is.