Free: Contests & Raffles.
How can impeding water flow bad? Ok so the first example I gave is a bad one but still... isnt more water in the ground good as well? The "storage" of water is either on the surface or in the dirt. If you are like most people your runn off from your neighborhood runs into a settling pond to inject it into the ground water. Why? To filter it a d slow its progression down hill to even out surges in waterflow. I will try and find the article tonight but in California they are diverting some flood waters to try and recharge aquifers.
perhaps this article is a little better at describing the situation.http://www.mnn.com/your-home/at-home/blogs/oregon-man-in-possession-of-13-million-gallons-of-illicit-rainwaterIt is also similar to a previous issue in Wy where a man had made stock ponds and got into trouble with the EPAhttp://legalnewsline.com/stories/510643529-epa-threatens-20-million-fine-on-wyoming-man-who-built-a-pond-on-his-farmPerhaps the guy in oregon isnt the perfect case but i use it to illustrate a point. Water rights are huge and what you think may be legal or not need clarification.
As of December 2 last year Kittitas County enacted law that severely restricted access to wells and ground water. If people weren't actively using their well, or at least had an active building permit in hand for construction which would use the water, the county required them to purchase permits, at the cost of thousands, and wifi meters to put on their wells. Even those pieces of property with previously permitted wells installed were not allowed to use these wells without paying up. My understanding is the Washington State Department of Ecology sneaked over the pass and decided to force this issue in the county against the wishes of the residents of the county. The law was very quietly passed and most property owners who have land they intended to build on in the future, even those who got county well permits and even drilled their wells, cannot access water on their land. Access they paid for already was taken away.The irritating thing here is, the state DOE sneaked this through by putting tremendous pressure on the county government and the whole thing was done behind closed doors and enacted into law. It's another sneaky way to control what citizens do on their own land. I'm sad to say Kittitas County is beginning to look like it's becoming Bellevue east. The King County rules are sneaking over the pass.