Rain, a free resource...

...or maybe not so much.

I liked this bit;

21 Acres farm wants to create on a much grander scale when it breaks ground next year on an agricultural center with farm stalls, classrooms and test kitchens. The new addition could store 150,000 gallons of rain to irrigate dozens of adjacent garden plots, currently sucking up expensive city water.

There's just one problem.

It almost certainly would violate state water law. And if one wanted to be persnickety, so might the rain barrels cities encourage conservation-minded homeowners to buy.

"We're all promoting it, it's the right thing to do, it makes sense, but it's illegal," said Vince Carlson, a meadmaker and architect for 21 Acres. "Nobody says anything, and we're all kind of hush-hush about it."

I've long known about water rights, as they pertain to most western states' rights on controlling rivers and lakes, but...THE FUCKING RAIN?!? WTF? You've GOT to be shitting me.

I've got an idea for Vince, too, if he'll stop to think about the eventualities of what he's up against. I'm certain it's something that won't sit too well with him when push comes to shove on the matter, but he'd best just get used to it, because some governmental bureaubot has already read the damned story and is consulting with a "superior" and probably the relevant "legal" expert on how, exactly, they're going to, at the very minimum, tax your ass for the privelage of using a human necessity that falls freely from the sky.

Seriously, he needs to read and understand the implications of his situation and how it directly relates to something written over at the WRSA a couple of weeks ago.

I really do think he needs to take a lesson or two from Mike Vanderboegh, and learn to "Frighten the White People," out of their shit-stained breifs. Seriously.

H/T to Kevin Baker for gettting the ball rolling, if only in a tangential, convoluted sort of way.