{"id":22349,"date":"2016-12-27T15:36:06","date_gmt":"2016-12-27T20:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=22349"},"modified":"2016-12-27T15:36:06","modified_gmt":"2016-12-27T20:36:06","slug":"couple-forced-to-destroy-40yo-pond-on-their-own-property-because-govt-owns-the-rainwater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=22349","title":{"rendered":"Couple Forced to Destroy 40yo Pond on Their Own Property Because Govt Owns the Rainwater"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"name post-title entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/thefreethoughtproject.com\/couple-destroy-pond-govt-owns-rainwater\/\">Couple Forced to Destroy 40yo Pond on Their Own Property Because Govt Owns the Rainwater<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"post-meta\">\n<div class=\"entry\">\n<p>Butte Falls, OR \u2014 An Oregon couple has been told they must destroy a 2-acre pond on their land \u2014 the property\u2019s most attractive feature \u2014 because the government said so.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u2014 but that fact doesn\u2019t matter to the Jackson County Watermaster\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>\u201cI basically bought a lemon,\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u00a0said Jon, who became teary-eyed at the edge of the partially ice-covered body of water being targeted by government, in an\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mailtribune.com\/news\/20161220\/couple-told-40-year-old-pond-near-butte-falls-is-illegal\">interview<\/a>\u00a0with the\u00a0<i>Mail Tribune<\/i>.\u00a0<i>\u201cThat\u2019s how they explained it to me.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p>But the couple desperately wants to keep the stunning longstanding feature in tact, so, as the\u00a0<i>Mail Tribune<\/i>\u00a0reports, the Careys have\u00a0<i>\u201cpleaded 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.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>\u201cThe Water Commission has rights to the watershed around the Careys\u2019 property, where dozens, if not hundreds, of ponds are located, as well as Medford\u2019s primary source of water, Big Butte Springs.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p>And the Careys aren\u2019t the only people in the watershed who\u2019ve had difficulties with, well, \u2018the government\u2019s\u2019 water.<\/p>\n<p>Eagle Point resident Gary Harrington spent 90 days in jail for illegally harboring some 13 million gallons of illicit rainwater \u2014 that\u2019s enough rain to fill around 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.<\/p>\n<p>Harrington masterfully crafted several ponds on his property \u2014 even building docks for one, and stocking it with largemouth bass \u2014 but his insistence the water would assist in fire control and prevention didn\u2019t satisfy the government, since a\u00a0<i>\u201c1925 state law dictates that the water belongs to the Medford Water Commission.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p>As\u00a0<i>Mother Nature Network<\/i>\u2019s Matt Hickman\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mnn.com\/your-home\/at-home\/blogs\/oregon-man-in-possession-of-13-million-gallons-of-illicit-rainwater\">reported<\/a>\u00a0in 2012,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Couple Forced to Destroy 40yo Pond on Their Own Property Because Govt Owns the Rainwater Butte Falls, OR \u2014 An Oregon couple has been told they must destroy a 2-acre pond on their land \u2014 the property\u2019s most attractive feature \u2014 because the government said so. Although Jon and Sabrina Carey purchased the 10-acre property [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[14622,14623,379,8125,6318,866],"class_list":["post-22349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-claire-burnish","tag-free-thought-project","tag-government","tag-oregon","tag-rainwater","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22350,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22349\/revisions\/22350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}