4 ms·

Same where I live, in California. One of my coworkers wanted to get a permit for a well, and the county's policy was to make the permit as expensive as running

Same where I live, in California. One of my coworkers wanted to get a permit for a well, and the county's policy was to make the permit as expensive as running a water main to the property, making it always cheaper to subsidise their water infrastructure than to build your own. Keep in mind that I'm in the part of the state that is extremely wet, where aquifers fill faster than agriculture can use it, and residential use is a literal drop in the bucket, compared to agriculture use. Most of Californias resevuoirs are built for flood control, with power generation as an added benefit, and shipping water off to the drier parts of the state as an afterthought. In rural areas, people often directly support each other to get buy, and the urbanites absolutely can't stand it when they aren't relying on the urban fifedom. Just like the area in Colorado that the article discusses, it's illegal here to share well water. They've also made it illegal to pool your trash together for a dump run. Until the state stepped in, it used to be illegal to collect your own rain water, too. The same for inlaw quarters, which are really common in rural areas. (My county once spent nearly half a million, to unsucsessfully sue a group of people for a fraction of that amount, because one of them sold his land to the others, who each custom built their own houses, instead of having a county-approved developer build all of them.) Even a few decades ago, California used to be the place for antiestablishment types, even in the urban areas, and its sudden changeover to forced top-down management has created a somewhat splintered government that alternates between extreme limits and strong reforms.

joshuaissac 1y ago
Are these rules decided at the county level? And can municipalities override them? I am wondering if the rural folk can incorporate to free themselves from these absurd restrictions.
- dlcarrier 1y ago
  Those are county rules, but every county has the same ones. I don't know if a cities could make leaner rules, because I've only ever seen them make them stricter. It's crazy that picking up garbage is so universally a government enforced monopoly that every county seems to have independently required it. The county runs the dump, but anyone could transport garage with minimal capital, so the garbage company doesn't have the same monopoly excuse that other utilities have, yet I can chose from three cellular phone providers but legally only one garbage pickup service can serve my address. Not only that, but if the property is occupied and service is available, I'm legally required to pay for service, whether I use it or not, and if I don't pay for it, even if I'm not using it, it'll be added to my property tax bill, and if I don't pay it there, the county will auction off my house to pay for it. I heard that east-coast mafias had something to do with the over-the-top levels of cronyism involved, but I don't see how it's spread to every county in the west coast.
  - slipperydippery 1y ago
    > I heard that east-coast mafias had something to do with the over-the-top levels of cronyism involved I'm in a fairly densely-populated part of the east coast and we have lots of options for trash hauling, and none of them are "official" or provided by the city. ... I do wonder about the wear-n-tear on the neighborhood roads from having like 5+x as many trash truck trips on them per week versus a municipal solution, given how fast road wear scales with axel weight. I bet it's enough to matter, which means we're all paying a hidden cost for being able to choose among trash companies. It also seems like the base costs would have to be significantly higher, given far more trucks required and way fewer pick-ups per mile driven.

joshuaissac 1y ago

Are these rules decided at the county level? And can municipalities override them? I am wondering if the rural folk can incorporate to free themselves from these absurd restrictions.

dlcarrier 1y ago
Those are county rules, but every county has the same ones. I don't know if a cities could make leaner rules, because I've only ever seen them make them stricter. It's crazy that picking up garbage is so universally a government enforced monopoly that every county seems to have independently required it. The county runs the dump, but anyone could transport garage with minimal capital, so the garbage company doesn't have the same monopoly excuse that other utilities have, yet I can chose from three cellular phone providers but legally only one garbage pickup service can serve my address. Not only that, but if the property is occupied and service is available, I'm legally required to pay for service, whether I use it or not, and if I don't pay for it, even if I'm not using it, it'll be added to my property tax bill, and if I don't pay it there, the county will auction off my house to pay for it. I heard that east-coast mafias had something to do with the over-the-top levels of cronyism involved, but I don't see how it's spread to every county in the west coast.
- slipperydippery 1y ago
  > I heard that east-coast mafias had something to do with the over-the-top levels of cronyism involved I'm in a fairly densely-populated part of the east coast and we have lots of options for trash hauling, and none of them are "official" or provided by the city. ... I do wonder about the wear-n-tear on the neighborhood roads from having like 5+x as many trash truck trips on them per week versus a municipal solution, given how fast road wear scales with axel weight. I bet it's enough to matter, which means we're all paying a hidden cost for being able to choose among trash companies. It also seems like the base costs would have to be significantly higher, given far more trucks required and way fewer pick-ups per mile driven.