Off Grid Living with Michael David

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Water Storage Part 2

So now we have IBC totes for water storage...

Finally.

Man that was a nice transition.

Until...

Our county made the most ludicrous law you could ever make.

They literally made it illegal to carry water in tanks in a county with off grid homes all over it.

I've never seen anything so stupid.

The law was actually written that you could not carry more than 100 gallons at a time on "specific roads" and they never specified what those roads were.

So, every single water truck that was hired to haul water in this county fucking stopped. Overnight people literally could not get water cause the county was taking their commercial license somehow if they were caught.

They said it was to hurt the marijuana growers that put up like thousands of plants each year. It's pretty clear that when you grow that much you can work around this law.

So now, I was not only pulling from streams which California says is illegal but the county I'm in has a law that you can have your fucking car taken and commercial license taken on essentially any road the officer decides is on of those "specific roads".

So now I not only had to go to the stream illegally but then also do it at midnight when everyone is asleep so no one sees me with a tank at all.

What the actual fuck?!

It really don't matter what laws they make, when you need water, you need water.

So go get the water.

This had me going far less often than before out of fear of being caught with water.

Man, I can't believe I just wrote that.

It's true, even if I was carrying water from in town I was still doing this illegally.

Ok, you've heard me rant about how challenging laws is super important.

This is why.

Sometimes they are actually this stupid.

Being in fear of your freedom just so you can get water to bathe and wash dishes with is ludicrous.

For those feelings I should be doing something actually illegal, not just trying to provide for my family.

Was Hitlers long lost nephew in charge of this place?

I had tried a couple experiments with rainwater collection by putting tarps down and creating a catch then siphoning off that catch down hill to my tank. It worked but only when it rains and only for that one tank. The tarps also tore to shreds.

I had a roof but no way to hold more than 275 gallons. It only rains from October to May here. So I needed to store a ton more water than that to get around being the water bandit at large.

Like, thousands of gallons more.

I estimated that we could survive on 6000 gallons a year since we had been used to conserving. That of course would not include a garden or anything like that, it would only be washing.

How the hell was I going to store 6000 gallons of water though?

Find out next Friday :)

Off Grid Living with Michael David Water Storage Part 2
by Michael David
Co-founder of #thealliance and loyal since before the egg.