Moving to Co Springs. Want rural location.

[ophelia.raphaela]

Originally Posted by Sonic_Spork

Oh, man. Water rights, it's one of the craziest things I've ever read about. So putting a container (cistern, even a barrel) on your property to catch rainwater for your personal use, is illegal in this state. Water that runs off of your property is in fact claimed by the prior rights of parties "downstream" and as a matter of fact, water flowing in rivers through this state might wind up being the property of OTHER states that had a prior claim upon it....somehow necessitating us to pipe water into populated areas here in CO, from elsewhere. It. Is. Bizarre. I have no idea how your penpal gets away with trucking water from a reservoir or aquifer anywhere. One hopes he's paying someone for the right to do so, or has some kind of authorization to do so...because if he was just doing it on his own steam without anyone's OK, and he got caught by the authorities, I am thinking he'd be in a world of trouble.

i would think so too! i don't think he's stealing it, that just wasn't my impression. then again he didn't mention having to pay for it, either. i will check this with him.

water is an issue EVERYWHERE whether people know it or not, because state and property lines irregardless, we live in one big ecosystem where everything is connected. you know you've cracked the water table in your state when you start to get sinkholes. we are overpopulated and already using water up faster than it comes in; it's only a matter of time before use becomes rationed or regulated everywhere.

water rights... i didn't know that included catchment systems. i wasn't planning on using one, I didn't figure it rained enough to be useful there. that's why i was thinking water stills. i bet they haven't written a law for THAT one yet

[Sonic_Spork]

Actually sometimes you'd be amazed how much it rains. Annual rainfall probably isn't that much, and the air is incredibly dry...but if you had a good manner to filter/treat and store precipitation, you could wind up with quite a bit of water I would think...between the occasional monsoon rainstorms and snow... and depending on your location and luck of the draw with thunderclouds. (Except that it's illegal, of course.)

One issue though is that in some locations, when you get a good rainstorm, it comes with wind, which picks up a lot of dust and particulates and rains it down. After it rains, cars look filthy!

If you were hoping to get some condensation out of the air, I'd say not to count on it. The air here is seriously arid, it's a high-plains desert. It's so dry most of the time, I wake up in the night with the tissues of my nose, throat, and sometimes my mouth (if I opened it in my sleep) painfully dried out.

Municipal water seems by far the easiest route, so long as your municipality permitted the goats and chickens and whatnot. Personally (and this is just my opinion) I think that sustaining food resources is a far more valid use of water than a pretty lawn of non-native grass.

[lalahartma]

Some folks are working for a more inclusive policy for mini-goats, like Denver has:

Chickens

[valn5kids]

Originally Posted by lalahartma

Some folks are working for a more inclusive policy for mini-goats, like Denver has:

Chickens

Thank you for this link it was very helpful!

[Marcy1210]

When my husband was practicing law in Woodland Park, he often did water rights allocations. He'd been told by many water lawyers around the country that Colorado actually has some of the best water laws in the nation, and many states have tried to emulate them.

Here in Tucson, they encourage rain water catchement systems. It would be nice if Colorado would do this, especially for those on wells where water is restricted to indoor use only.

Rainwater Harvesting | The Official Website for the City of Tucson, Arizona

[Arrby]

... which means very few people qualify. Numerically speaking, most people with wells have a "Household" use permit, not "Domestic" use.

Let the drought get deep enough and someone somewhere may very well turn you in.