LF: Couple Being Forced to Destroy 40-year-old Pond on Their Own Property Because Govt Owns The Rainwater

Title: Couple Being Forced to Destroy 40-year-old Pond on Their Own Property Because Govt Owns The Rainwater
Source: Activist Post
URL Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2016/12 ... perty-govt-owns-rainwater.html
Published: Dec 26, 2016
Author: Claire Bernish
Post Date: 2016-12-27 06:16:48 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1906
Comments: 10

Butte Falls, OR — An Oregon couple has been told they must destroy a 2-acre pond on their land — the property’s most attractive feature — because the government said so.

Although Jon and Sabrina Carey purchased the 10-acre property near Butte Falls two and a half years ago, the pond has been in place for 40 years — but that fact doesn’t matter to the Jackson County Watermaster’s Office.

“I basically bought a lemon,” said Jon, who became teary-eyed at the edge of the partially ice-covered body of water being targeted by government, in an interview with the Mail Tribune. “That’s how they explained it to me.”

But the couple desperately wants to keep the stunning longstanding feature intact, so, as the Mail Tribune reports, the Careys have “pleaded with the Medford Water Commission to adopt the pond and treat it as a municipal water source, something Jackson County Watermaster Larry Menteer has opposed because of the precedent it would set.

“The Water Commission has rights to the watershed around the Careys’ property, where dozens, if not hundreds, of ponds are located, as well as Medford’s primary source of water, Big Butte Springs.”

And the Careys aren’t the only people in the watershed who’ve had difficulties with, well, ‘the government’s’ water.

Eagle Point resident Gary Harrington spent 90 days in jail for illegally harboring some 13 million gallons of illicit rainwater — that’s enough rain to fill around 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Harrington masterfully crafted several ponds on his property — even building docks for one, and stocking it with largemouth bass — but his insistence the water would assist in fire control and prevention didn’t satisfy the government, since a “1925 state law dictates that the water belongs to the Medford Water Commission.”

Harrington and the Oregon Water Resources Department waged an extended battle over the ponds, and at one point, it was ruled he would be allowed to keep everything in place — but that decision was backtracked in less than one year.

Ultimately, “Rain Man,” as he came to be called, found himself charged with nine misdemeanors, spent three months behind bars, and had to shell out $1,500 in fines — and was ordered to destroy the dams and drain all the ponds.

Harrington’s case might have been infinitely more complex than the Careys’ — considering the large volume of water and infrastructure he’d put in place — but they share the same theme of overbearing government and arguably wholly unnecessary law versus the right of people to do as they please with their property.

“When you’re honest, they take everything away from you,” said Sabrina Carey, who inspected country records — which plainly showed the pond — before they purchased the property.

Going by the book might have been the ‘fatal’ error for the couple, however, since the county didn’t take issue with the pond until Jon sought to grow legal medical cannabis on the land and had to prove there was a viable source of water for the grow operation.

According to the Watermaster’s Office, the previous owners had not received a permit for the pond, so the Careys were now in violation of Oregon regulations — and they would have to shoulder the cost of draining the water.

In an effort to prove the pond is legitimate and persuade county government to allow it to remain on the property, the couple stopped using it — even though the well on their land had run dry — and began shipping in the water for daily living and gardening from nearly Butte Falls.

They’ve also had no choice but to hire attorney Sarah Liljefelt, who filed a request with Jackson County to provide a permit for them to store water, stating, “The reservoir on Ms. Carey’s property, though small, is one of the largest in the area.”

As the Mail Tribune notes, “Liljefelt said the pond is an important source of water for beavers, otters, elk, deer, bear, mountain lion, bobcat, bald eagle osprey, great blue heron, snowy egret, Canada geese and the western pond turtle.”

By all appearances, the large pool of water does more good for the environment than if it weren’t there at all — during their fight with the State, the Careys even suggested it be used for fire control and prevention, like Harrington did, as the pond is easily accessible by fire crews.

“This pond seems to be doing way more public good than not being here. Why, now, is it so important to be removed?” Jon lamented.

Indeed, the 40-year-old man doesn’t even profit from the medical cannabis grown on the land he and his wife own, as he literally gives the crop — free of charge — to friends.

Members of the Water Commission disagree on whether this is an issue worth fighting over at all, but as the Mail Tribune reports,

However, the commission also failed to state why this should be a matter for the government in the first place — why punitive bureaucracy needs to meddle with a pond on private property, serving as a valuable ecosystem, that poses no threat to anyone or anything, and isn’t even an eyesore, must be destroyed.

Besides a trailer home and dilapidated house, the pond is the only thing of value on their acreage, and, obviously, as Sabrina said, “We didn’t buy it for the double-wide.”

She told the Mail Tribune the pond should have been registered with the Oregon Water Resources Department nine years ago, but the owners at that time did not reside on the property and didn’t do so.

They have even offered to reduce the pond’s size, allow officials to inspect it when necessary, and have provided a draft easement to the commission in hopes of allowing the prized water feature to remain intact — thus far to no avail.

“We’re just trying to do it by the rules,” Sabrina explained. “I’m trying to cooperate.”

In 2012, Gary Harrington had already been through years of conflict with government officials over illicit water — and provided CNSNews with stronger sentiment on the topic:

When something is wrong, you just, as an American citizen, you have to put your foot down and say, ‘This is wrong; you just can’t take away anymore of my rights and from here on in, I’m going to fight it.’

That government feels entitled to not only something located on private property, but that people should not be allowed to collect rain, is everything wrong with excessive government — and the overregulation of daily life.

As bizarre as it sounds, laws restricting property owners from damning up the watershed drainage through property to make a beautification pond have been on the books for quite some time in many Western states.

In Oregon [for the case presented in the article], the passage of the first unified water code has been law since February 24, 1909, that introduced state control over the right to use water and has never been successfully challenged in court. That state law does predate the claim by Jon and Sabrina Carey on the “40-year-old pond.”

Recently, as droughts and renewed interest in water conservation methods because of severe water shortages have become more common throughout the West….the Western state governments have become increasingly interested in enforcing the age-old laws of stopping rainwater drainage [purely for some aesthetic reason like a beautification pond] that flow into the streams and rivers to be used for public consumption.

There was no problem 40 years ago when the drainage was stopped to collect in the pond on their property. But now with the ever greatly increasing population in the West and thousands upon thousands of people damning up or diverting the watershed drainage on their property….water shortage has become and will remain a major issue.

The owners of the property were foolish not to check the laws before they bought the property since they thought they had sole ownership of the water that flowed through their property and held by them in a pond….when they never did.

That population increase is driven by open borders, which is at the heart of libertarian theology. So this couple can thank libertarians for what is happening to the pond.

You can blame John McStain, Lindsey Graham and the rest of the open borders traitors for the influx of illegals.

A letter from the Oregon Department of Forestry on Dec. 2 to the Water Commission supported retaining the reservoir to help suppress wildfires and provide enough water for a multiday operation.

"I would like to urge the Medford Water Commission to consider keeping the reservoir in place at its current capacity for the purpose of providing a long-term water source for wildland firefighting," wrote Neal Laugle, state aviation manager for ODF.

Without the water, Laugle said it could increase the length of a wildfire fight and could lead to more destructive wildfires.

Jackson County Fire District 3 sent a letter Nov. 29 encouraging the commission to maintain or develop rural water supplies for firefighting. Without the rural water sources, firefighters would have to truck in water, the letter stated.

My friend owns a large ranch and the fire-fighting helicopters siphoned water from the big pond on his ranch to fight the Rodeo–Chediski Fire, the second largest forest fire in Arizona history.

The view is from the main ranch house.
The pond in located left center and ranch manager’s home is on the right.

The entire ranch is off-grid…. a visit to the place is like steeping back in time.

The owner, gave his wife an old one-man saw mill, one of the first in Arizona, for Christmas one year. It was what she wanted, they are “history buffs” and collect old Arizona ranch equipment..

The blacksmith shop is “old-days” too….just like you would see on a movie set for late 1800s western filming.

All the old equipment is maintained in workable order by the ranch manager who lives there year round. The owner mainly spends only summers up there.

There an old steam engine in the front yard of the main home, which he cranks up from time to time and drops a large rubber ball down into the vertical exhaust. We could sit on the front porch and watch the ball bounce up and down out into the air about 3 feet with each putt-putt of the engine. Eh, something interestingly different to do.

Oh, there is an old cannon on the back porch facing down hill towards the pond. The barrel is about the size of a large potato. It was fun drop a large potato in the barrel and see who could hit closest to the center of the pond.

He has the place up for sale and there is/was a video on line….if you care to see it, I will go look.

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.” - Ron Paul

Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.