Drought! Watering ban. By what authority? (Atlanta)

[NinetyWt]

From my college text (Water Supply and Pollution Control, Harper & Row, 1985):

“Groundwater poses an extremely difficult legal problem. Unlike the case of surface water…Three basic rules cover the use of groundwater.
The first, or English, rule is one of absolute ownership. It allows the overlying landowner to take groundwater from the land at any time and in any quantity, regardless of the effect on the water table of a neighbor’s land. Under this rule it would be possible for a landowner to exhaust the total groundwater supply of an area by heavy pumping”

90: wouldn’t that be rude?

“This rule has been qualified in some areas to limit the malicious and wasteful use of the water.
The American rule, or rule of reasonable use, recognizes that the landowner has rights to the water under the land but that these rights may be limited. The rights to water are limited to its reasonable use in relationship to the overlying land.
The third rule convering ghroundwater is the appropriation principle, whereby the water is allocated for specific uses.
The English doctrine is followed in some eastern and western states. The American principle of reasonable use is followed by many states. In several of the western states, the appropriative principle has been applied by statute, court decision, or both to the use of groundwater…
In many instances, the present doctrines and projected uses are in direct conflict and are irreconcilable.”
I also found this for Hawaii:
http://planet-hawaii.com/environment/890right.htm

And this from Idaho:
http://www.idwr.state.id.us/info/water/rights/wr1.htm

The Idaho site says that the state considers the groundwater to be waters of the state. In that case, you would not be able to extract water without state supervision.

I also found this:
http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/society/A0851613.html

IMHO, groundwater is a resource which belongs to all of us. I don’t have a problem with everyone getting their fair share, but let’s don’t be greedy and withdraw it at a rate greater than its recharge rate. Some western states are experimenting with injecting their aquifers with treated wastewater (ew). I’d hate to see it get to the point where we are drinking it straight out of the wastewater plant.

:eek:

[galt]

YiBaiYuan, how about if you set up an underground pipe (just below the surface) going from your well to your lawn, and terminate it in a buried “soaker hose” (one of those hoses that leaks all along its length). Then maybe you could claim that since you didn’t actually take it out of the ground, you’re not actually using the water – just moving it around a little.

[galt]

Oh, another idea: if you’re limited to “watering” four hours a week, couldn’t you just water at a higher rate for those four hours? And then maybe if that rate is too high for your lawn to benefit from, you could “water” a big tank at a really high rate for four hours, and then have the tank leak the water out onto your lawn slowly for the rest of the week.

[stockton]

*Originally posted by Duckster *
**You forget that water is a utility resource, owned by everyone, and by no one. The private company that supplies you with water is merely performing a service at the behest of the greater society. They are compensated for their service.
**

Thanks for your input, Duckster, but I did not “forget” anything. I stressed in my OP and my follow-up post that I do NOT condone wasting water, especially when it is scarce. My question was about the allocation of authority to penalize, and the recourse provided. Achernar, great cite!

[YiBaiYuan]

Galt, thanks for the suggestion. It’s not really an issue at the moment. Fortunately we’ve been getting a lot of rain lately. But I don’t think they’d buy that argument since, as I’ve mentioned, they seem rather draconian in their views of their own authority.

Balthisar and NinetyWt both mentioned water rights in connection with land ownership. At one time here, when you bought a piece of property you were also automatically granted the mineral rights and the riparian (water) rights. What that meant was if you went out on your property, dug a big hole in the ground and found gold, then it was yours; if you found oil, it was yours; and if you found water, it was yours. Then, at some point along the way the state started withholding the mineral and riparian rights unless they were specifically mentioned in the purchase agreement. But what I don’t know is when and how they managed to strip those rights from those who held them prior to the passage of whatever new laws they made.

As it stands, the Water Management Districts in my state believe they hold absolute control over the distribution and use of all the water in the state, both surface and subterranean.

What is more, the decisions of the WMDs would be a little easier to accept if they had any semblance of being made in the public interest. As it is though, most of what they do is to benefit those with special interests.

To illustrate, water users in Florida are categorized as either “small users” or “large users”. Small users are private residences and regular small businesses. Large users are places like big farms, water bottling plants, and water-intensive industries. What the WMDs have been doing is placing tight restrictions on the small users, while at the same time placing few limits on the large users. Even worse, while calling on individual homeowners to curtail their lawn watering to only a few hours, they at the same time approved more than a dozen applications for new golf courses, which of course fall in the large-user category. This isn’t the same as letting existing golf courses continue to operate; this is approving NEW ones. They have also approved the applications of several out-of-state water bottling companies to bottle up millions of gallons per day for shipment out of state. This is where all the saved water is going.

Their restrictions would be easier to abide if they were implemented evenly. As it is, the WMDs seem to operating under a reverse-Robin Hood principle – take from the little guys and give to the big guys.

It’s just disgusting what they do under the guise of “serving the public good”.

[Balthisar]

*Originally posted by galt *
**Oh, another idea: if you’re limited to “watering” four hours a week, couldn’t you just water at a higher rate for those four hours? And then maybe if that rate is too high for your lawn to benefit from, you could “water” a big tank at a really high rate for four hours, and then have the tank leak the water out onto your lawn slowly for the rest of the week. **

In Leon, Mexico (and I imagine other parts of that country), the people do this all the time. It’s not to get around watering bans, but just general water availability – sometimes there simply ISN’T any, so their big tanks reserve a few hundred gallons just in case.