And here in the states there's bans on collecting rainwater on state by state basis, despite the fact that there's good data that it doesn't matter to the macro hydro systems if people collect rainwater.
In South America it's even crazier. Bolivia was forced to privatize their water system as part of the neoliberal polices they needed to enact in order to get a world bank loan. That new company banned rainwater collection and has used heavily armed paramilitaries to enforce it.
Here in CO at least it's 100% a water rights thing. They're afraid of downstream lack of water if everyone is collecting their runoff (and afraid that the smaller farmers won't need to buy as much if they're collecting their own).
Funny, I grew up in Central Oregon and my friends and I (who are from there) always call it "the CO" and many other people assume that we mean Colorado.
It was explicitly illegal before that, and now you can only collect two barrels from your roof if you live in a rural area (I think you have to be on a well).
> Nothing about wells or rural areas, just 1-4 family units max and 110 gallons
The part you're looking for is the part about the state engineer. I'm not sure if it's all settled, but the goal there is to ban it in places where they can make an argument that the grey water in the rain barrels and the rest of the water infrastructure might mix. That means that rural areas off of water infrastructure are the only safe ones long term.
> Previously they were only "technically" illegal because as written, you had to prove they injured the water rights of others.
There was case law that any collection infringed on the water rights of others, because otherwise the water would flow into aquifers and what not if you only had a third grade knowledge of the water cycle. You didn't have to find the specific person that was harmed. My MIL in rural JeffCo got in a zoning fight with county gov, and that was one of the things they successfully hit her with. It was enforced, my own family got hit with it.
That's not how the burden of proof worked. It was established case law that any collected rainwater without clear water rights was infringing.
It's like if you went into fight a speeding ticket by questioning quality of the radar gun. I mean, in an ideal world you should be allowed to, but it's not going to fly. Our common law style system has this overarching goal of internal consistency, and there's been tons of cases where the radar (or maybe some relative of the radar, but close enough as far as the court is concerned) has been legally found in the past to be trustworthy. It's also in the Court's best interest to have this line of reasoning because it saves the court from having to rehash the same arguments saving the court immeasurable amount of time. About the only way you can get out of that situation is new legislation.
The courts here had gotten into a similar state where it wasn't really willing to hear new evidence on the matter, and needed legislation to patchfix. Something something checks and balances.
IIRC they aren't afraid of people collecting runoff from their roofs -- more like collecting all of the water that falls on their land/building artificial reservoirs while starving the downstream watershed...
But the root is, that's not really a thing out here. The runoff from rain like that doesn't tend to make its way into the water system on that go through the water cycle. Out here it mainly evaporates and sublemates. The water that makes its way into aquifers and rivers is almost entirely glacier/snowpack melt.
I'm trying to understand what it means for a private company to "ban" something. My guess is that the government created a framework for a private company to operate as highly regulated utility with a monopoly on water distribution. If my guess is correct then it is really the government that is supporting that "ban" and I would guess (putting my cynical hat on) that there are some pretty cozy relationships between the owners/investors in the private company and the government.
The private part doesn't sound crazy all by itself, but I think it is a challenge to create systems that prevent a private regulated utility from abusing its privileged position.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3948194/
In South America it's even crazier. Bolivia was forced to privatize their water system as part of the neoliberal polices they needed to enact in order to get a world bank loan. That new company banned rainwater collection and has used heavily armed paramilitaries to enforce it.