I wonder when that news story aired. The law has changed perhaps as result of that story.
"Rainwater harvesting is now legal in the state of Utah, starting May 11 2010. Senate Bill 32 was approved in the 2010 session that provides for the collection and use of precipitation without obtaining a water right after registering with the Division of Water Rights. There is no charge for registration."
http://www.waterrights.utah.gov/forms/rainwater.asp

We have 'good' news for you (maybe) if you DON'T live in OHIO where the Ohio EPA has made up a bunch of rules that make the water we buy from the local water company into STATE WATER once it leaves our faucet.

Heck even the urine that your body produces is State Water and they have rules to say what you can do with it even after our experimental sanitation system, still in the process of fighting for approval, cleans it to bathing quality cleanness, yeah tested by that same Ohio EPA's best labs. So we're being told. If I drink Ohio's water and then urinate in Kentucky, who's water is it?? The rule makers are totally out of the bounds of sanity. That urine has been converted to a body-friendly antiseptic formerly used in battlefield wound cleaning, and now being used as fertilizer in Finland, Sweden, South Africa, etc. Not to mention having been shown to be better as fertilizer than the petroleum based fertilizer. Gee, I guess you are competing with Monsanto or DuPont, etc. Whose urine is it...

We argued that the water coming from our constructed wetlands greywater system was as clean as the water from our blessedly left outdoor hose and so we should be able to use that bathing quality water to replenish the water in our frog pond that we built for our habitat use. No, no they say. That's never allowed in Ohio. Even that hose water is subject to their laws and rules... well, almost. If you run the hose to your above ground pool, rather like the frog pond, then there are different rules than for the frogs and while it's in the pool it's not state water, yet.

I'd suggest that you check your own state's EPA regulations for water and your rights to own it and use it yourself. And this is February 2011. We're not suggesting that you should protest in our defense. Go protest in your own state if you take the effort to pursue your own state EPA rules and find out you're also robbed after *buying* that water from the local water utility as we have.

And the same probably applies to the rainwater that falls on our greywater wetlands. How can you tell which drop came as rain and which was greywater from our home? And maybe that rain came from Indiana, so whose water is it once it falls in Ohio? Clearly we have too many laws. Once the water gets back to some recognized creek, river or lake that would make some sense to call it state water. But on your own land?

If I let it wash out the neighbor's front flowerveds, then would the state be liable or would I? I think we should take responsibility for our own water and its use. Why don't we take this out of government's hands and take our own scientific methods and be responsible for controlling our own handiwork.

Don't assume this problem is solved just because some big player in the city got through the hoops.