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HunterCA -> RE: Off-Grid Living Is Illegal! So hows that Constitution Working for ya? (6/7/2015 12:26:22 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: tj444
quote:
ORIGINAL: HunterCA
G) state regulations, through EPA regulations harshly deal with water and waste water. Generally, cities and counties have little choice. Yet, the questions comes up of why cant city folk be off the grid like country folk. I have 80 acres of land. I have a septic tank and a leach field. Before I could build those, I had to prove I could shut down the leach field and make another as the life expectancy is only about 20 years for a leach field. Every house generates, on average, about 250 gallons of liquid waste per day. If you live on a 50'x100' lot you're not going to be able to dispose of your waste.
H) you all might have seen in the news recently how the EPA now thinks they own the little wet spots that exist after a rain near creeks. They call them waters of the U.S. well, you better bet your sweet bippie that the EPA belives it owns that woman's rain runoff. It's all calculated in Permits issued by either the Fed or State government where you live...in the US. If everyone stored rain runoff, all ofbthe little fishies wouldn't have anything to drink and play in. Sure one person isn't going to affect it, but then the government is put in the position of being asked if she can why can't i. Ain't gonna happen.
I know of a city in FL where the lots are that size 50x100 and you can put in a septic system.. this is a city on the west coast so the water table is high... but the city allows this and will give you a building permit for it..
Come on dude.. a rain barrel in every yard is not gonna cause the rivers to dry up.. if the govt was so damn concerned about the poor lil fishies it wouldnt have filled in and paved over all the little creeks & swamp land that used to be there.. Here in Houston & Austin last week, there was no damn place for the rain water to go!.. it rained 10 inches overnight.. the highways & streets were under water, vehicles were under water.. 9 or 10 people died just here in Houston.. even houses along the river near austin were swept away..
I know in the city there needs to be building codes but the problem is what is the legal code today may not be legal a few years from now cuz they keep changing it.. what was legal code 5 or 10 years ago isnt code today.. The govt here makes building considerably more complicated than it needs to be, and each city/county is different.. its all about money and control.. some of the rules are stupid, for instance, in one city in WA state, you cant build your foundation up higher than the level of the ground itself, its got to be on grade.. so if it happens to flood even a little, you are screwed and your home could be flooded... how smart is that?
I'll bet you any amount you don't know a city where they'll let you put in a septic system on a 50x100 lot because the leach field is larger than that. They may have a septic tank that pretreats anarobically before it dumps into the city infrastructure. I've actually managed two of those. But you're not going to get a leach field in that size lot and the leach field does the aerobic digestion. In the case you're talking about the city is just letting the home owner have a smelly tank in their back yard doing part of the sewage treatment for them at the homeowners cost.
You can belive anything you want about rain water. You'll notice in the news in the last couple of weeks the EPA is taking jurisdiction over puddles of water that may stand for a day or two after a storm. But, you'd only be ignorant to believe they don't already believe your rain runoff belongs to them. Believe me, I've spent days talking to biologist from the National Marine Fisheries about this, years ago, because I couldn't believe it. You, as an individual homeowner, may get away with it. But you're breaking the law. It's the sort of overreach by the federal government that is crazy but people like you will ignore until it bites you personally.
The law says you may not, either, increase or decrease the flow from your property beyond what was there when the land was undeveloped. That flow is calculated and expected to do several things, primarily keep fish wet. But, that collective flow also has other biological purposes such as maintaining temperature and turbbidity in the receiving streams. Sure, will one house make or break a system, no. But, if the city let's you do it and then 10,000 other home owners say how come she can and I can't, then the system fails. This is all driven by the clean water act revision in 1998. I can remember ol Newt trying to put some sanity into that revision and ol Bubba lining up a bunch of school kids in school busses along the Patomic River and saying Newt was trying to poison the water for these kids. The Republicans caved. Of course every lefty alive applauded. Now, you're seeing the ramifications. In this area, designing and constructing to comply with those laws adds, probably $150k to the cost of a house. You don't see the design or construction and the lefties are real good at not letting you know why that cost is there. But it is. And that design and cost is predicated on technical assumptions...like when an average storm falls on your house there will be so much runoff that comes off your property. That's calculated assuming the perviousness of your property, so the square footage of your roof, porches and walkways are completely impervious but your yard and planters have a percent imperviousness. When you actually, take out a flower bed and install a concrete patio you're changing the runoff amount and technically violating the law. You don't know that. But it's how fucking fricking insane our big government has become.
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