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Comment by nkssy | Hacker News Reader

Quite a variety of rules, laws and regulations. I'm fairly sure there are errors in this list but the effort to compile it must have been significant. Kudos.

Its so strange to think of rainwater collection as illegal. That is utterly dystopian. But there it is across multiple areas.

Rules against solar? Wow! That's backwards and just screams stupid. On the flip side, I fully get regulation for any connection to the grid as with some kind of permit for the house wiring in general. House wiring should be up to some agreed upon code so its not made of sticky tape and extension cords.

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> Its so strange to think of rainwater collection as illegal. That is utterly dystopian.

The laws around water rights are surprisingly complex and have a long history.

In practice, no one is going to care or pursue a homeowner for collecting rainwater on their property for personal use. It’s one of those situations where the laws were written with other scenarios in mind (protecting water rights holders) but there hasn’t been a clarification or carve out for personal use exemptions because it’s not really an issue that comes up frequently or maybe at all.

Until about 15 years ago Colorado was extremely serious about fining people caught collecting rainwater. Like somebody with a bucket of petunias watered from their rain gutter. It was ridiculous.

I can sorta kinda dream up a reason for solar rules to exist. Not good ones, mind.

But can anyone take Devil’s advocate here and explain why a state might want to limit or prohibit rainwater collection? I’m struggling.

Surely it can’t just be financially motivated, right?

You collect a couple of gallons of rainwater, no problem. Everyone upstream catches rainwater? After all it's unregulated, a tank or a pond, no difference. Now cities downstream have no water.

Collecting rainwater disturbs the flow of water to downstream users.

This is the real answer. In some cases that water is already owned by someone downstream.

Here is the scenario: you are the first settler in an area. You settle by a stream and use the water for irrigation or whatever. Then someone settles upstream from you and diverts the water for another use. In many places you have property rights to the flow of that stream based on prior usage.

> that water is already owned

Yup. If you allow people to "own" rainwater that hasn't even fallen yet, you are going to need some batshit regulations. So don't do that then.

Water rights have long been an issue in the mountain west, and are highly coveted. They go back to the settling of areas, and directly influence property values. Even well-depth is regulated for newer properties so as to prevent them from usurping water in use by existing residents.

I can see replenishment of the water tables being a concern, if everyone (or a good percentage, at least) started doing so. Add to that concerns about disrupting existing ecosystems, and I could see at least a partway compelling case that could be made. In fairness, there are likely to be at least an equal number of counter arguments that could be levied as well, but such is the nature of governance.

Are there any reported cases of water tables dropping because of residential water use? I always see agricultural and out-of-home use blamed (e.g. large lawns/gardens). I mean, any draw has impact, but I imagine water tables being so full of water when you hit them that you 100L/day draw for showers/cooking/washing/flushing has insignificant impact in any non-urban area.

>can see replenishment of the water tables being a concern, if everyone (or a good percentage, at least) started doing so.

Used to live in a village with a well (acquifer) and pumping station but in the city I live in now, and all the surrounding towns, all the water supply comes from rainwater (via a reservoir and treatment plant) ... like, where else you going to get it from?

Well, desalination notwithstanding, pretty much all water people use comes from rainfall/snowfall. It's just a matter of what combination of aquifers, man-made reservoirs, lakes, rivers, etc. are used to manage the water supply.

If a lot of it in diverted it might disrupt the ecosystem of ponds and streams that existed.

> why a state might want to limit or prohibit rainwater collection

It seems nuts to me - a bit like regulating the breathing of air, or restricting the right to look at the sky.

I can only suppose that these regulations protect the revenue of water companies. I can't think of any socially-useful reason for restricting rainwater harvesting, when the rain is falling on private property.

Harvesting all the rain that falls on a floodplain is another matter; that would amount to appropriating an entire river, which in some parts of the world would cause an "international incident".

I suppose you could argue from a health perspective, you don’t want half arsed systems that lead to people getting cholera.

> Its so strange to think of rainwater collection as illegal

If you take a few gallons, it's fine. If you and 10,000 other people take a few gallons, that a problem. So we need to regulate it a little.

Why is it a problem? Honest question. In the mediterranean basin it was a necessity to collect rain water and store it in a big underground cistern. Most people don’t do it now a days, but old houses still have the system in place.

If you use it, you keep the first rain waters of the season diverted to allow for roof cleaning, then you set the pipes to store the water during all the winter.

You also have to keep some control of water quality. The traditional method is throwing a lime stone in to the cistern to kill the patogens.

The western US has a different concept of water rights because there’s literally not enough water for everyone to do what they want with it. All the water that falls is already accounted for, possibly by someone way downstream of you. Even if you don’t live near a river, that water is draining to somewhere and spoken for. If everyone collects it then whoever has the claim to that water is being denied their property rights, most of which were allocated on the basic concept of “finders keepers” a couple hundred years ago during the settling of the American west.

The challenge is that people invest their money and lives (building businesses) on the fact that they have these water rights so it’s hard to change without creating high emotions on both sides (“water is a human right” vs the primacy of property rights)

If you and 10,000 other people take a few gallons, then in total you match the annual water use of a single household.

> Its so strange to think of rainwater collection as illegal. That is utterly dystopian. But there it is across multiple areas.

Which states? The only one I saw was Nevada, which is a desert. In a place with not enough water to spare, bogarting it can cause serious problems for other residents.

Florida, for one

> Rainwater harvesting is legal and encouraged in Florida. Many municipalities even offer incentives and rebates for rainwater harvesting.

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