Michael Barnes said:
I hate to tell you this, but these folks live in Oregon. They have some kind of code for everything. Sadly, they would most definitely require various permits and have a truckload of codes to meet for a railroad like this. And every inch of the state of Oregon is zoned. Almost everything that requires a permit also requires the work to be completed and signed off by a state licensed tradesman. And everything needs a permit. They even have low voltage electrical codes. If you are going to run computer or telephone wiring, security systems or even wiring out to your garden railroad you must get a permit and be a licensed low voltage electrician. One fellow built an outhouse in the far back portion of his very rural farm so he didn't have to go all the way back to the house. The county found out about it and fined him for zoning violations and failure to get building permits. They ordered him to tear it down within two weeks. He told them where to stick it. When the two weeks passed, a TEAM of contractors came in with several trucks and a great big track-hoe to demolish this illegal outhouse. The track-hoe took one big bite and dropped it into a waiting dump truck. They then took out a couple bucket loads of the pit as well. They tore the whole place up moving their trucks and equipment around, left a big gaping hole in the ground, and left. The next day the guy got a bill for several thousand dollars for the demolition, removal and disposal of his illegal structure and related bio-hazard material. He tried to sue for the damage to the property, but Oregon law prohibits that kind of lawsuit. They put a lien on his property and said if he didn't pay up, his farm would be sold at a Sheriff's auction in 45 days. For an OUTHOUSE!!!
And the creek? If water enters and leaves your property, regardless of how much land you own on both sides or how far along the creek you own, that water is under the jurisdiction of the Fish and Wildlife Department, which just so happens to be a division of the Oregon State Police. So, every state cop is also a game warden. If the water is considered navigatable by anything (canoe, kayak, rubber raft, etc) you are required to allow public access to it.
Do you have some link that describes this outhouse story in more detail? I’m kind of skeptical about that–it sounds like one of those “i heard about it from a guy who heard about it from…” stories. I did some searching on Lexis/nexis and could not find anything about it. But maybe my search terms were just too general.
Streams can’t be owned as if they start and stop at one person’s property–how can they? If I own the stream in my backyard and can do anything I want to it, suppose I trash it–the guy downstream has his property ruined. How is that legitimate, or right? Streams have to be owned to some extent in common, because they flow across different property lines.
Here’s a link on water use rights in Oregon, published by an organization of White Water rafters.
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Article_view_articleid_379_display_full_
It makes the argument for public useage of waterways, the other side of the question. I have no dog in this hunt, but it seems like, as always, the state needs to strike a balance between competing interests
It also strikes me that if you have a stream that’s navigable, and you build a low railroad bridge across it, you just rendered it un-navigable. That would have legal ramifications, it seems to me, under Oregon’s set of laws. But I’m not a lawyer
And it still seems pointless to argue about this case because we have no evidence of what the county–it’s the county, as far as I can tell not the state–is claiming.