I’ve complained in this blog about the damned EPA till I’m blue in the face. Amazingly, my complaints have not have much impact, as the agency continues its unconstitutional practices willy-nilly. So all I can do is analyze.
The latest outrage is not new, but I hadn’t heard about it until I stumbled across it inadvertently. It seems that a nice, politically correct microbrewery in Atlanta, Georgia thought they would do the right thing and produce “green beer” by using rainwater instead of regular tap water to brew their product. What on earth could be wrong with that in today’s greener better world?
According to the EPA, a lot. So much that they stepped in and shut down production of green beer.
Atlanta-based 5 Seasons Brewing Co. has been using a commercial strength 6 stage water filter to collect thousands of gallons of water each month. 5 Seasons found its recycled water to be potable, after substantial testing to ensure that it produce quality beer. In fact, the rainwater would be void of chlorine, an unfavorable additive of city tap water used in brewing.
Unfortunately, the state and federal regulating authorities were not as excited. A national feature on the brewery raised a bit too much attention, and now the EPA has issued a opinion that the use of rainwater is not permissible for producing beer. Apparently, the EPA came to this result after finding no regulation that permits the use of rainwater for human consumption.
I find this result a bit perplexing. Typically, if something is not regulated, then it should not be regulated.
My usual constitutional concerns aside, I found the above nothing short of amazing. And puzzled. Normally, we would think of such things as involving local health authorities, who had no problem with the brewery. but the EPA? Their job has nothing to do with human health, but environmental health. Yet environmentalists love to preach the virtues of using rainwater; I am deluged with regular “green” reminders about how I would help save the environment by using a rain barrel. Rainwater is about as green as you can get, right? So what could the EPA be thinking?
What seems to have triggered the EPA’s interest was that the brewery had been featured on CNN. (HuffPo lovingly preserved the video which can be streamed there.) I’m thinking that such national attention might have worried those malignant communitarians who look at the big picture and who want to keep everyone on the government grid so they can better facilitate our further reduction to serfdom. Such people have a major problem with self sufficiency of any kind, because they want to be in charge. And even though they can’t control the water that falls from the sky, they would like to, so if you put yourself in the mindset of such a person, it’s easy to see how they might rationalize and repackage their thinking in environmentalist terms.
The water that is being collected and brewed into beer would otherwise have trickled into the ground and into whatever “watershed” the brewery is situated on. And, instead of letting it go into the ground as Gaia intended, these greedy capitalists are taking it and using it to make money! Therefore, they must be told immediately that this is not a permissible use. All water should come from the government! Water that falls from the sky is not yours, but is property of the state. Obviously, they will not say this directly, but I think it’s clearly the goal.
Lest anyone doubt me, consider that rainwater is now illegal in at least nine states:
As bizarre as it sounds, I guess it really shouldn’t be a surprise. We have covered numerous stories of how the government has been chipping away at the rights of land. From survival gardens being seized to the land owners in California who are being forced back on to the grid, people’s rights as land owners are being shredded by local, state and federal governments.
In the latest abuse of power, a man in Oregon has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and ordered to pay a $1,500 fine for collecting rainwater on his own land. Gary Harrington was convicted of nine misdemeanor crimes for filling his three man-made reservoirs with rainwater and snow runoff. The state of Oregon claims the water that fell from the sky, is owned by them and the Medford Water Commission.
Outlawing Rain Water
It just doesn’t get any crazier than this. What’s next charging us for the air that we breathe?
How we ended up in a place that allows the government to tell us what we can or can’t do on our own land is crazy in and of itself, but for the government to claim they now own the water that falls from the sky is almost beyond belief.
It is almost beyond belief, but so are a lot of things that go on routinely. This is another of those things that would seem like satire to me if it weren’t reality.
The ongoing criminalization of rainwater is so bad that even the New York Times has discussed it.
What would Jefferson do?
Comments
12 responses to “The water that falls from the sky belongs to the government!”
Well, that does sound crazy. Initially.
And we know what Jefferson would have done, and I love Jefferson, he would have sent the slaves to clean up.
Here in Colorado, it is illegal to take rain water for your own usage. Water Law is complicated, and of long standing, in Colorado. Has to do with downstream usage/ownership. So the microbrewry would not be allowed to take the rainwater here in CO either. State law.
Long ago it was about preventing any monopolistic control of water. Now, its about government taking control. Control the water. Control the people.
I believe Mark Levin & Landmark Legal Foundation are planning on suing the EPA after the first of the year. These agencies are acting far beyond what power they’ve been delegated by Congress. The commielibs have been using agencies for a long time to implement their statist fantasies, no matter who is elected.
These agencies are acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Sometimes they let you submit a public comment before they take away your right, so they aren’t all bad.
This is why people are buying guns and ammunition. Sooner or later it will all come to a head. Cheers –
The problem here is that restricting rainwater collection in parts of Oregon (and Colorado) may very well be necessary. There’s no aquifer and not much in the way of natural lakes, because the land is so vertical, so water districts rely on rainfall runoff from relatively small watersheds to fill man-made reservoirs. Regardless of where you stand philosophically, existing water-use technology arguably makes this sort of policy necessary.
However, the EPA has seized on that precedent and is attempting to impose the same policy on places with good aquifers watered from large areas, where a a few homeowners storing rainwater won’t make a bit of difference. Simply for the purpose of establishing more unlegislated control over resources.
The EPA must–MUST–be dismantled. Every EPA employee must be fired. Their building(s) must be razed to the ground, and all their assets liquidated.
Don’t know about the eastern US, but in the west laws restricting the diversion of rain water have been around for well over a century.
What would Jefferson do?
Convince Colonel Washington and some Patriots to hang the bastards.
“So what could the EPA be thinking?”
A characteristic of totalitarian states is that any behavior not compulsory is prohibited.
What John S. said. And most of the rest of the alphabet too. ATF, FDA, TSA…on down the line. You could probably remove 90% of the federally funded alphabet and replace the (very few) necessary functions with about 6 agencies.
OK, so if the State owns the rainwater, then everybody and his brother needs to start flooding the courts with lawsuits against the State for rain and flood damage to private property due to the State’s rainwater! Home insurance companies need to also join in a class action law suit against the State. Incredible! This gives new meaning to government arrogance.