sue
is
y
it
il
b
a
in
a
t
ew’s sus
rainwater harvesting
I
f you’ve ever talked about capturing and using the
plentiful rainwater here in Oregon, someone has
probably told you that it’s illegal.
That would be wrong. It’s perfectly legal,
providing you catch the rainwater off of an
artificial, impervious surface, according to
Michael Mattick, the Oregon Water Resources
Department’s watermaster for district 2, which
includes Lane County.
Watermasters regulate water use during
shortages, mediate disputes between water
users and provide water rights information to
landowners, among myriad other water-supply
oriented duties.
Mattick points to a Jackson County case in which a
landowner was jailed for storing rainwater that he didn’t
have permits for as the source of the rumors that Oregon
doesn’t allow rainwater catchment. In that case the
landowner, Gary Harrington, built three reservoirs with
dams so large they can be seen from high-elevation aerial
photos, he says.
According to the Medford Mail-Tribune, Harrington’s
illegal reservoirs were storing enough water “to fill 20
Olympic-sized swimming pools.”
Once the water hits the ground, Mattick says, it’s
public water, and someone else might be expecting it. In
other words, landowners nearby might have had the right
to the water Harrington was storing and weren’t getting it.
As hard as it is to believe that rainy Oregon has a limited
water supply, water is not an unlimited resource.
But harvesting rainwater, when done correctly, has
big green benefits. It can do anything from decreasing the
volume and rate of stormwater runoff and its associated
water pollution, recharging groundwater when it’s used
for irrigation, and conserving energy, says Stephanie
Scafa of the city of Eugene’s waste prevention and green
building program.
She says rainwater harvesting is specifically “a
strategy of capturing rain, storing it over time and re-
using it on-site. Rainwater systems can be as simple
as putting rain barrels under gutter downspouts, or as
complex as constructing an underground cistern and
water pump system.”
Mattick says that after rainwater harvesting became
a legal issue in Colorado in the 1990s — it was illegal to
collect rainwater in barrels there until 2016 — Oregon
It’s legal to capture rainwater,
if you do it right
BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
was motivated to amend its own laws. “Prior to that it
didn’t say anything about collecting rainwater,” he says
of the Oregon law. “It was just silent.”
So under Oregon law since about 1995, you can
collect rainwater, but you have to collect it off an
artificial, impervious surface, like a roof or a parking
lot. You can’t build a dam or dig a big hole and catch
rainwater and store it, but you could technically cover
10-acre parking lot in plastic sheeting, catch that
rainwater in barrels and be good to go.
Scafa says, “Rain is a naturally soft water and does not
contain harmful minerals, chlorine and other chemicals,
and plants respond well to it.” And, she points out, once
you have a rainwater system set up, the water is free and
it conserves energy “because water from a centralized
municipal system must be pumped throughout a vast
service area before it can be piped to your house.”
Before designing and investing in a rainwater
harvesting system, Scafa says, “you should consider
Eugene’s dry summer climate, your intended uses for
rainwater and your site capacity for collecting rainwater.”
You also need to consider protecting the public water
supply from potential contamination originating in your
rainwater harvesting system, she says.
And some rainwater systems require permits. Scafa
says that small residential rainwater harvesting systems
of less than 5,000 gallons generally don’t require a permit
if they’re “used for outside irrigation only and do not
alter the existing private stormwater system,” though she
adds that such systems may require a plumbing permit.
Larger or more complex systems used for irrigation may
require a building permit and stormwater review.
Indoor water that you plan to use for flushing toilets and
clothes washing needs plumbing, electrical and possibly
building permits if you install a cistern or underground
tank. For potable, aka drinking water, you need all those
permits and you must treat the water to federal safe
drinking water standards and meeting standards set by the
Oregon Building Codes Division, Scafa says.
To learn more about catching rainwater and using
it in a rain garden, Scafa recommends checking out
the Water Wise Demonstration Garden in Alton Baker
Park next to Nearby Nature’s Park Host Residence and
the community garden at 622 Day Island Road. And for
more info on permits and other considerations, go to
eugene-or.gov/877/Water-Reduction-and-Reuse. ■
ILLUSTRATION FOR EUGENE WEEKLY BY LILY PADULA
eugeneweekly.com • A pril 20, 2017
19