This is a little tale of how thinking outside the box can turn a situation on its head.
It all started several months ago when i was approached by one of the maintenance men at work, he knew that i was into solving puzzles and would often come to me with a crazy conspiracy theory that he had collected off the internet and i would have to either confirm or rebuke the theory with science and logic. This day was different. This was a real life problem and his friend needed some help.
His friend had built a dam on his property and after several months, the dam was full of water ready for use throughout summer. Then he had been approached by a government agency who told him that as he did not have a permit to hold their water on his land, he needed to apply for a permit and that he would then be charged for using their water from the dam or he could just destroy the dam releasing their water.
Intrigued, i asked for details of the dam and property.
There was no watercourse on the property and the dam was built between two hills with a Backhoe, just a bank of earth. If the dam was destroyed, the water would flow into his lower fields and drain away leaving him with no water for his first year on his new homestead.
After thinking this over for a few moments, i had the solution.
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As the water was not coming onto his property from a watercourse or from his neighbours, then the government agency could not lay claim to the water. i told him that his friend needed to contact the government agency and tell them that they had no legal or lawful authority to tell him what he can or cannot do with the dirt on his land, and if it is their water on his property, then they can come and collect it. If they could be so kind to confirm that it is their water, then he would be charging $100 per day for storing their water on his land.
To this day, they have not been in touch to confirm that it is their water on his property. A win for thinking outside the box.
