Gary Harrington, aged sixty four, Oregon's most notorious criminal and a resident of Eagle Point is currently serving, I can't believe this, currently serving thirty days in Jackson County jail for collecting rainwater on his own property.
Quite a lot of rainwater as you'll see here but it rains a lot in Eagle Point and Gary
doesn't want to waste it.
And just to sweeten the deal,
he's also been handed a $1,500 fine.
All this in The Land Of The Free where they have the world's biggest prison population.
In some US states it's illegal to have solar panels on the roof of your home. In others it's illegal to have a clothes line on your property to dry your laundry. In others you can go to jail, and people have, for having a vegetable garden in their front yards. Or their back yards.
The world is just getting way too stupid...
I smell big corporations lurking behind that.........crazy indeed.
ReplyDeleteYes... The world indeed is a crazy place. Madness reigns.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's been said many times that life is stranger than fiction but there has been just too many reminders lately as in today's rainwater collection story and yesterday's dangerous tree story. Hopefully tomorrow's story will be that this was just another episode on Candid Camera. Please tell us Keith that I guessed right.
ReplyDeleteI built a new house in Kapiti last year and was forced to install a 10,000 ltre water tank to collect rainwater off my roof to be used for toilet and gardens .Cost a small fortune and as it rains here a lot I really don't think I am saving the planet .
ReplyDeleteThis dang world and the powers that be, are going power and control crazy. 1984 is a little late in coming but it is getting here.
ReplyDeleteDisgusting!
ReplyDeleteThe land of the free...
ReplyDeleteWe are surrounded by Idiots and their closing in...
ReplyDeleteIf you test that rain water it will have nanoparticles of aluminum from geoengenering the skys.This blocking out of the sun throughout America causes cancer, autism, ALS,.Less sun everboby deficit of vitamin D3.all because of nanoparticles of aluminum, barium etc.Its killing all our national forests.
ReplyDeleteThink about no more organic food.17 billion dollars to do this.Yes 17 billion.Look up.The sky are not blue they are silvery and no stars at night.
The powers to be can do this to us.Can do anything.Pray.
Got to(Why in the World they are spraying us )on YouTube
This is beyond disgusting. And meanwhile, spring water continues to be commercially bottled in California by a foreign corporation while that state suffers a severe drought. It's the privatization of everything, including air when they can get away with it (as has happened in China recently).
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see Mr. Harrington do a Gandhi number. While in prison he should meditate, read Thoreau on civil disobedience, and when he emerges from the dungeon lead the masses in civil disobedience. Next time rain clouds loom, he and his followers in their thousands will head for the nearest beach or maybe the square in front of city hall carrying buckets, tarps and other water collection gear and deliberately & on purpose gather rainwater in despite of unjust laws.
But this being the USA, the cops will probably mow them down with the latest military gadgetry fresh from Iraq, to the applause of press and public cheering as the "terrorists" get massacred.
Embarrassed to be an American.
ReplyDeleteI know it seems insane. But, we need more on this story. I'm in Oregon. Here's what happened. He wasn't collecting rain in his porch rain barrel. He was damning rivers and tributaries. Huge difference. It is LEGAL to collect rainwater in Oregon from impervious surfaces like your roof into rain barrels or cisterns. The State of Oregon convicted Mr. Harrington under a 1925 law that declared all water as public or “state” water. This is due to the prior appropriations law that creates priority water rights. This means the first person to obtain a water right on a stream is the last to be shut off in times of low stream flows. This prevents landowners from damming up the streams and rivers that cross their properties if there are downstream users such as cities and other water providers that have older water rights. The Oregon Water Resources Dept. claims that Harrington has been violating the state’s water use law by diverting water from streams running to into the Big Butte River. There are many other names that could be used for the act that Mr. Harrington was doing. Call it stormwater harvesting, “filling a pond”, etc, but applying the name “rainwater collection” to it will cloud people’s understanding of this subject. Rainwater collection in the tradition sense really means “the collection of rainwater from an impervious surface such as a roof”. It is all semantics but rainwater collection still has a long way to go to be accepted and understood by the public. One news story stated that Mr. Harrington had 13 million gallons of water stored in his “rainwater collection system" which was actually three ponds. In 2007, Mr. Harrington entered a guilty plea for illegally damming water from the tributaries crossing his property. He received three years probation and was ordered to release the impounded water. This recent lawsuit filed by the State stems from his refusal to meet the conditions of his probation. Mr. Harrington has been fined more than $1,500 for nine misdemeanor convictions, ordered to serve a 30 day jail sentence, and required to breach his dams and drain his ponds.
ReplyDeleteThankyou for that Michele. I was aware that he wasn't just collecting his roof water and there is more on what he was doing by clicking on the link but I didn't know he was blocking and damming water and denying others from accessing water.
DeleteThe devil is always in the detail.
Thankyou again...
"He was damning rivers and tributaries"
ReplyDeleteWell that puts a totally different complexion on the whole affair. It's something only Beelzebub would do!
Did you click on the link Val?
DeleteYes. I'm just exploiting a minor typo for cheap laughs, as is my way.
DeleteI watched a video on you tube where a police man told this man off for washing his car on his own drive way. A neighbor reported him.
ReplyDeleteWhy should that be surprising? I live in a drought stricken area- wells going dry, farmers having to slaughter their cattle- and I get very angry when I see water restrictions being flouted. It seems some people can't accept the idea that there is an actual limit to the amount of water a community can pull out of the ground-aquifers only refill so fast- and a corresponding limit to the amount of water they personally are entitled to use keeping the SUV shiny.
DeleteThe man has 170 acres. He's collecting what falls on his property and when his holding "pond" is filled it will continue to migrate down to the lower properties. In the event of drought, which is happening, this may help keep other wells filled, provide all wildlife in the area with drinking water and fodder/grazing supported by the water.
ReplyDelete