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Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy is poised to sign a "rain tax" bill passed by the state legislature Jan. 31 — and Republicans and lots of taxpayers are howling with rage.
"Every time you think there's nothing left to tax, we come up with something else," Assemblyman Hal Wirths (R-Morris-Sussex) exploded during a debate on the measure.
"It's just never-ending down here."
The law allows each of the state's 565 municipalities to set up its own public stormwater utility. The new bureaucracies will build and manage sewer systems to treat pollutant-filled stormwater runoff.
https://nypost.com/2019/02/09/new-jersey-wants-to-tax-the-rain/
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QOTD:
"My life is a soap opera, but who gets the movie rights?"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:42AM (7 children)
You weren't allowed to use rain barrels because it was feared it would deplete the groundwater. That law was rescinded.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @05:54AM
Multiple states have had issues with this.
https://www.sightline.org/2011/07/14/legalizing-it-your-rain-barrel/ [sightline.org]
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/29rain.html [nytimes.com]
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you can get a rebate instead of a tax or ban:
https://doee.dc.gov/service/rain-barrel-rebates [dc.gov]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 11 2019, @06:58AM (5 children)
AC already answered you, and provided links. My take on all of this is corruption and greed. Nowhere in the eastern US do people claim these "water rights". So far as I am aware, no place in the world does so. Maybe some desert countries (think Saharan countries) or maybe Australia. It seems a unique thing to the western US. The entire history of the land barons in the west is nothing but corruption. Tied closely to all the other land barons, were the railroads. The SOB's used every trick in the book, and then wrote their own books, to cheat all the REST of our ancestors out of land, water, mineral rights, grazing rights, and any other rights that go with being human. Try a search on your favorite search engine for "land barons of the old west". I hit Duckduckgo with it, and there are so many pertinent and interesting hits, I don't know which one to offer you.
Even today, it seems that only 25 individuals own 1% of the land in the US. Businessinsider doesn't want to allow me to read that story, because I run adblockers. https://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-landowners-america [businessinsider.com] (the blurb on the search page suggests that these are 25 individuals, as opposed to corporate entities, such as Weyerhauser)
Imagine, if you will, some wealthy royal ass in old England, trying to lay claim to all the water on, above, or below the ground. When I try to imagine it, I see the church shooting him down, as well as the commoners. Water is water - it belongs to whoever it falls on. The Bible asks, "Does it not rain on the rich man and the poor man alike?"
But, these very special SOB's thought they could lay claim to every drop of moisture falling on a county, or a region, or within a river drainage. And, they had enough money to bribe lawmakers.
None of that shit makes the least bit of sense to any rational human being with any interest in justice. No one has "water rights" to my yard, or yours. My land has first rights to any water falling here, or even flowing across it. Any excess flows downhill, and people downhill can have all they want of that water. Ditto every person in the world. The entire body of "water rights" laws is a mockery of justice. If there are any exceptions to that statement, those would involve cities and states building reservoirs to supply drinking water for it's population. That, of course, falls under "eminent domain".
The whole concept of water rights disgusts me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @08:33AM (4 children)
there are upstream vs downstream arguments of river water all over the world. Israel is quite touchy about the Jordanian River water flow, for example. The US & Canada periodically have to negotiate about the Canadian dams on the upper Columbia River in British Columbia. And so on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @11:16AM (3 children)
https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/dams-china-turn-mekong-river-discord [yale.edu]
Time to kick China out of Tibet.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday February 11 2019, @12:27PM (2 children)
There's a lot to be said for and against dams. On the plus side, they do tend to tame the rivers. Trap the floodwater, as much as possible, then release it throughout the dry season. Those interested in the water for irrigation should appreciate that benefit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 11 2019, @01:31PM (1 child)
I doubt the people at the bottom of that river appreciate their subsistence livelihood being drained away
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday February 11 2019, @05:12PM
That argument can be handled by treaties. (Treaties, of course, are frequently broken. Oh well.)
The thing that's harder to handle is the changes it causes in the environment. Some of the changes are beneficial to people, but often only to *some* people. And locally adapted plants and animals frequently suffer tremendously, leaving the area vulnerable to invasive species.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.