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Comment by ericmay

21 days ago

That’s definitely true for some places but how are you measuring that? By population or perhaps state and territory?

Where I live the city subsidizes rain collection barrels.

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ericmay

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amazingamazing  21 days ago

Where do you live where you can collect rain at a quantity that would allow you to forgo central water?

I’m not talking about having a barrel. Most states don’t care about that quantity. I’m talking about storing on the order of 10k gallons. A rain barrel is nothing. An average family in the USA uses hundreds of gallons a day. It doesn’t rain daily so you’d need thousands of gallons. Most states do not allow this, nor is it actually feasible for everyone to do this due to space constraints, which is why it’s generally not allowed.

  • batch12  21 days ago

    My state provides rainwater collection guidance in the plumbing code. We also have wells. I use a well.

    • amazingamazing  21 days ago

      Which state is this? Some states such as Massachusetts and Maine, will allow you to have a well, but then you cannot have central water. Thus, the dichotomy is irrelevant since it's not like someone actually has a choose, since it's done on the municipal level.

      In fact, generally the places in Connecticut, and New England that have well water are because they specifically cannot have the other.

      I don't know much about western USA, but I suspect it's similar.

      3 replies →

  • ericmay  21 days ago

    Well you wrote that in the US it’s generally illegal to collect rain water and I don’t think that is true.

    But if your point was that it’s illegal to collect enough rain water for XYZ purpose or scale I think that’s a bit different.

  • ath3nd  21 days ago

    > Most states do not allow this, nor is it actually feasible for everyone to do this due to space constraints, which is why it’s generally not allowed.

    You are getting into something there. You understand the necessity of municipal water collection mandates due to space constraints, but when it comes to public health (e.g vaccines) or public dental health (e.g fluoride in water), that's beyond comprehension and an infringement on your right (to have bad teeth)?

    Also, in the real world, most (emphasis on most) states don't have any restrictions on collecting rainwater, and some actively encourage people to do so.

    - https://todayshomeowner.com/gutters/guides/states-where-it-i...

    - https://sfyl.ifas.ufl.edu/lawn-and-garden/saving-and-using-r... (Florida highly encourages people to collect rainwater)