Who owns the rain?

Who owns the rain?  It’s a very important question.  If you think God owns the rain, then you’d be wrong.  If you think Mother Nature owns the rain, then you’d be wrong.   If you think you own the rain that falls on your property, then you’d be wrong.

The answer my friends, isn’t blowing in the wind.  To find out who owns the rain, you have to go no further than Lacey and to the Washington State Department of Ecology.   It owns the rain.  That’s right – – the Department of Ecology owns the rain.  How do I know?  They said so. 

Brian Walsh, a water resource manager in the Department of Ecology’s water resources program told The Seattle PI that the department owned all the rain that falls from the sky – – or at least all of the rain that falls upon Washington State anyway.

Not only do they claim to own the rain, but Ecology is currently in the process of developing new regulations to govern rain water collection.

So, all of those rain water collection barrels that the City of Olympia gives away, may be violating state law, although you can still probably get away with it.  Walsh told The Seattle PI that they weren’t going to go after someone with one rain barrel, but maybe if they had four, that may be a different situation.

So, if you’re collecting rain water to use later in watering your flowers or your garden, remember, it’s not your water.  It belongs to the Department of Ecology, and they may very well be watching.

Oh, the Department of Ecology doesn’t own the air.  That belongs to the old Olympic Pollution Control Authority.  (They have a new name but I don’t know what it is.)