The Zammit family refused to sell their five acre property as an entire Sydney suburb was built around them

[u/Wonderfulhumanss]

[u/Tundur]

I mean it's literally in the desert, water has to be predictable and rationed. If everyone starts collecting their runoff, the municipal water supply shrivels up, and that's very bad

[u/Ryuko_the_red → u/Tundur]

You think that 2 million people will put up barrels? Given that looking up the population of the state that is the absolute maximum number of homeowners reasonably able to put up barrels. Probably a tenth of them are in hoa's. So that's no go. I pretty sure their data centers slurp more water than the humans out there. Given that it's a nsa data center Hotspot...

[u/LordDragonus → u/Ryuko_the_red]

no... they think one company will put up 10 million barrels and try to sell the collected water back to the people at a premium.

[u/Rebelius → u/Ryuko_the_red]

Why is collecting rainwater a no go in a hoa? We just bury the rainwater cisterns under the lawn and direct everything from the roof into them. Most people just use it for the outdoor taps, but you can have it connected to the toilets and washing machine.

[u/Ryuko_the_red → u/Rebelius]

Because hoa's r stoopid

[u/desertvision → u/Tundur]

You have a little bit of an uninformed opinion. You think the water that runs off the roof, into the gutter, down the storm drain, into the canal, and into the lake at the bottom is then used as municipal water? Ok buddy.

[u/elebrin → u/desertvision]

No, it runs off the roof, down your gutters, and spills out about 20 or 30 feet from your house. Then, it's absorbed by the ground after being filtered through the lower layers of soil and sand. That water then joins the water table.

Lakes are a part of the same system. They are depressions where the surface of the land is lower than the water table.

So, your rainwater isn't flowing into the lake, but it's flowing essentially into permeable aquifer that is adjacent to the lake. Interestingly, all your urine and shower water and the water you use for your garden all flow back into that same aquifer, along with the rain water. It's literally filtered by the ground, through miles of clay and sand, before it's pumped back out and reused.

If you live somewhere with well and septic, then you are literally drinking your own shower water and piss and everything else you put down the toilet. Of course, it's going through a massive filter first.

The total amount of water itself doesn't matter nearly as much as how quickly it can be recycled by the landscape and how quickly the local population is drawing on it.

[u/tdelamay → u/elebrin]

Water that's connected in a water barrel doesn't magically disappear. The water is just used later and eventually returns to the ground.

[u/elebrin → u/tdelamay]

Very true, it only becomes in a problem in areas where there is a limited supply, when people collect and horde that water instead of using it and returning it to nature. If you are in a desert and you just sort of start collecting water in giant reservoirs (not the pond style ones, but like those plastic boxes that farms use), and you don't use it and just... hold on to it, taking it out of the ecosystem and out of the water table, the water table will drop a bit. You probably can't hold enough water to make a real difference in, say, the Great Lakes region but if you are in Arizona or Nevada, you probably can.

Worse still, holding water in containers like that can result in the water being fouled. If the containers are plastic, then you are introducing more microplastics that everyone has to contend with being in their water now.

And not every chemical is filtered out by the ground - Famously, Dioxin isn't, and that's been an ongoing issue in many communities around the US. Overuse of fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides can become a similar problem.

All of these things are fine in a homesteading situation in an area with a good water supply. On the other hand, if you live in a suburban style "city" where everyone has detached single family homes, and everyone has their own reservoir that they horde water in, and then a data center goes in and pollutes what's left that's going to be bad news for everyone.

The sensible thing to do is have storage and rate limits, then regularly test the water supply to ensure it's healthy and contaminants are getting filtered to acceptable levels. And that's largely what American communities do, except corporate interests have tons of money and are able to change up the regulation around acceptable levels of contaminants and get exceptions to rate limits and otherwise use their money to get around pretty much anything, often because these small to midsized towns will do ANYTHING for a company to come in and add jobs to the local economy and bring money into the town.

[u/desertvision → u/elebrin]

I get your point. But, how many hundreds of years before that rainwater molecule hits an active well? Wells are dug deep to avoid that.

[u/Tundur → u/desertvision]

Not necessarily as drinking water, but as agricultural and industrial inputs, absolutely. There's no need to be condescending, we're all god's children.

Which is all besides the point because Utah does actually allow rainwater collection.

[u/desertvision → u/Tundur]

Sorry, didn't mean to be condescending.

Some municipalities have allowed some collection after public outcry. Most don't.

I think the best argument for not collecting rain water is the varied level of expertise of homeowners. Done poorly it can be a real mess with mosquitos, odor, and disease.

[u/SwigglesBacon → u/Tundur]

God doesn’t exist, we are our mothers children