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What Really Happened in the Oregon Case?
The story usually gets flattened into a headline: an Oregon man went to jail for collecting rainwater. That framing skips almost everything that mattered.
What actually happened is that Gary Harrington of Eagle Point, Oregon, was sentenced in 2012 to 30 days in jail and fined $1,500. The offense was not sticking a bucket under a gutter. He was convicted over three reservoirs he maintained behind dams. Those dams intercepted water that was flowing toward a creek.
State water officials said storing water that way required a water-right permit he did not have. According to Oregon state officials, two of the dams were about 10 feet tall, while the third was about 20 feet tall. That is not a rain barrel. That is a built structure altering where water goes.
The same reporting noted that Oregon had an
