Private well use to be monitored by government – may lead to taxation, fees, or fines.
Missouri House Bill 1433 was signed by the Governor, and is now applicable statewide, and soon will be in effect in seven Counties in southwestern Missouri. The content of HB 1433 is such that implementation is likely to spread quickly to all Missouri Counties, once officials get a whiff of authorization to raise taxes and control the people’s use of well water.
The new law enables Volume Monitoring of wells. Yes, that’s right. If a County decides to implement HB 1433, all people living in that County will have to install expensive water meters on their own private wells, and report to a government agency the amount of water taken from the well. [Read more – Eco-Logic Powerhouse]
The way I read this, well owners are forced to pay for and install the meters themselves.
We are in a state of hostility to private property never before seen in this country. Rights are incrementally taken away every day. Can the tide be reversed?
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain. – Thomas Jefferson
Update: More on the unintended consequences of the Missouri water legislation.
When bureaucrats control the country
Posted: February 19, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
The Missouri legislators who approved a water law (HB 1433) in the waning moments of last year’s session no doubt thought they were creating something to help protect clean water in a nine-county area. That’s what they were told by reputable employees of the state agencies and influential lobbyists from environmental organizations.
The new law created a nine-county district in which water policy would be developed and enforced by appointed – not elected – officials.
None realized that the law they adopted was, in fact, an important step toward the implementation of a plan conceived more than 15 years ago by government officials and environmental organizations convened by, and systematically working through, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland.
The plan, generically known as “ecosystem management,” is designed to manage natural resources on an “ecosystem” basis, rather than on the basis of arbitrarily drawn state and county political boundaries. Equally important is the transfer of management authority from elected officials to appointed officials. The “watershed” is the primary building block of every ecosystem.
HB 1433 successfully designated nine Missouri counties as a watershed and created an appointed body to govern water, the essential ingredient in every ecosystem.
Ten years ago, in the same area of Missouri, the same government officials and environmental organizations attempted to impose the entire ecosystem management plan on the same area by proposing the creation of a U.N. Biosphere Reserve for Southwest Missouri and Northwest Arkansas. The plan failed because local citizens learned how the plan would diminish private property rights and transfer authority from local elected officials to professional bureaucrats.
“Local people are speaking up in Missouri. Russell Wood, head of the Ozarks Chapter of the Property Rights Congress, and Ray Cunio, president of Missouri’s Citizens for Private Property Rights, are leading an effort to repeal HB 1433.
More than 200 local citizens packed a restaurant where a meeting was held to discuss the merits of HB 1433 and the efforts to repeal it. State Rep. Dennis Wood, a proponent of the water district, explained that the legislation provided low-cost loans to people who would be required to upgrade their septic systems.
An unidentified lady said in response: “Why can’t you understand? We don’t want your ‘help.’ We don’t need your law! Why can’t you get that?”
Aside from the particular regulations and fines imposed by the water district law, the larger question is one that faces virtually every community in the nation: Who shall govern – elected officials, or appointed professionals?
The only way a government of, for and by the people can be controlled by the people is to throw the elected bums out of office when they enact laws or policies the people don’t want. When policies that carry the weight of law are enacted and enforced by appointed professionals, the people no longer have the means to control their government.” Read the whole thing.