Can You Actually Go to Jail for Collecting Rainwater?

The fear that a humble rain barrel could put you in handcuffs comes from mixing two very different things: small-scale rooftop collection and large-scale interference with natural waterways. In most places, a barrel under your gutter is treated more like a garden tool than a criminal scheme. What got Gary Harrington in trouble in Oregon was not “catching rain,” but building dams that intercepted water on its way to a creek, in a state where that water was already spoken for under prior-appropriation law.