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I live in Central Oregon, making a solar still imminently feasible. And yes, do be careful - as the previous poster noted, rain water harvesting is unlawful in some places. Perform your due diligence, and proceed with appropriate caution.
Ex Gladio Libertas
You Central Oregon guys are usually the first ones on the " f the laws" wagon. With your wide open spaces, I would not be worried about rain water harvesting. Pretty simple to set up a "natural drainage" system to collect rainwater in an impoundment .....it is encouraged on the west side to reduce storm water impacts, since the government idiots do not know how to handle it.
Mini excavator, pond liner, some ADS pipe and the right topography and you can have a pretty substantial pond for a low cost and minimal time.
Sorry my second amendment Central Oregon brother. Sounds like you live in Bend. Think about moving. Only a few miles, north,south,or east, you'll be fine.If I remember correctly, we have about 320 days of sunshine a year with annual precipitation at +/- 11 inches (less then 25% of Portland, about one sixth of North Bend). The one thing everyone seems to notice on their first trip to the desert is the lack of humidity. Below freezing temperatures are not unusual between Nov and May. We have lizards, snakes, creepy crawlies of all variety, partridge, several varieties of hawks, eagles, crows, feral cats and dogs, my domestic cat and dog, two different types of rabbit, coyotes, and deer - and that's just what has come up to my front door to introduce itself. We also have cougar, but they seem to be rather unsocial types and I've never seen one or any sign of one - but I'm hardly an expert on the latter.
I mention this simply to point out that any water I did manage to collect in a pond would probably suffer greater loss from evaporation then use [under normal circumstances], and that in an area lacking in surface water any pond is going to attract all the aforementioned critters, their feces, and whatever plague is currently in vogue with the animal kingdom. Of course, all of this will be offset by the joy of witnessing first hand the circle of life as it floats face down in what, by this time, used to be my back up water supply...
Something I am exploring is a cistern system - which is basically your pond idea with a critter abatement system (roof) installed. Oddly, not as simple as it seems if the goal is potable water - or the option to make it so.
In the last 25 years, I have lived in Portland, North Bend, Vancouver, and now here. One of the things that I've noticed is that petty bureaucrats are becoming more petty and more bureaucratic. I don't mind feral and bold in my women, but it gets old finding it in my Civil Servants... Over time, and lately on an accelerated basis, they seem to have adopted the attitude that The People are here to serve The Law instead of the other way around. IMHO, there are some people out there who would gladly destroy your life for the heinous crime of capturing water in a barrel. Imagine what they'd do if you killed the Kings deer. Thus my cautionary note.
Ex Gladio Libertas
Sorry my second amendment Central Oregon brother. Sounds like you live in Bend. Think about moving. Only a few miles, north,south,or east, you'll be fine.
Water, however, could be a real problem. Thus my interest in this particular topic.
Ex Gladio Libertas
You better watch out,you are on thin ice of suggesting doing something illegal.
Yes,collecting rain water can be illegal in some places
I can understand the need for ground water aquifer recharges, but prohibiting rain water collection seems a bit extreme.
I visualize a nice shop or barn roof with gutters, and the gutters running from that to my catchment system inside the building. Set up on racks so that I could gravity feed it into containers, or even hard plumbed to supply a pump system, probably an ozoninator purification.
.5 inch of rain on a 1800 square foot roof equals 623 gallons. Even with the low precipitation rates over there you should still be able to collect and store quite a bit.
This is a bit crude drawing I found, but the idea is the same. I would use one or several of the white poly ag container. I would use multiple units in case of a problem with one you have some redundancy built in.