Colorado used to disallow collection of rainwater too because people further down the line supposedly had the rights to that water.
You’re now allowed something like 2 - 30 gallon barrels to collect it here now.
Water rights are the opposite of late stage capitalism. It’s silly to enforce when we’re talking about a residential rain barrel, but when we’re talking on much larger scales is critical. When creeks are drying up because landowners are building catchment ponds, water rights start to look pretty good.
It’s because Colorado water law is based on ‘prior appropriations’.
Colorado was settled around mining and ranching, both of which can be water-intensive. It’s also a fairly dry place. Water rights have been serious business for a long time.
So the rule was that the first person there had the right to start using river water for their mine. Then, if a second person starts a mine upstream, they had the right to use river water only inasmuch as it didn’t impact the prior downstream mine. If there was a drought, the upstream mine had to use less water so the earlier mine wasn’t impacted. Rain barrels were prohibited because that water “belonged” to some downstream rights holder, just as using the water from a stream might be prohibited because it belongs to a downstream rights holder.
This isn’t really late-stage capitalism. The law in Colorado goes back to some court cases in the 1870s and 1880s.
It’s unfortunate that you have like four up votes for explaining the actual History behind it but the guy who just thinks it’s an issue that popped up ten years ago has dozens.
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Sometimes you have to think about broad impact when developing policy. Sure, laws against rain collection seem draconian on the individual scale, but if a large percentage of the population collected rainwater, reservoirs and water tables can be seriously affected. Not saying this specific Israeli action is justified, but there are valid limitations on water collection put in place to ensure everyone has access.
It would be substantially worse if there were no such limitations in place, and whoever owned the land that drained into communal reservoirs could privately control the water supply of a region.
“Everything I dislike is late stage capitalism, and I dislike anything I don’t understand”