Interesting. I never realised. The water must be a lot better there than here. Most bore water here is very hard. I remember taking my harley to my cousins wedding in the middle of the state where they have bore water that is drinkable, Just, as town water. I could not wash the bike without the thing getting white spots all over it. Cousin explained it was the minerals in the bore water. Washed it again and quickly rinsed it from a drum of spare water I bought with me in case of car trouble. Was fine then and I was able to dry it as normal without the spots. I was pretty surprised how many dissolved minerals there were in it.
Here our water is pretty good overall. People do complain but often the bad water can be traced to crappy old pipes. If the water everywhere else in town is good and yours is not.... Kinda narrows the problem down.
Yes, well water here is usually very good quality. Sometimes it is hard(mineral) but that is easily treatable with a water conditioner. Around here we have shallow wells and artesian wells. Most of the time there is good quality water in a shallow well about 30-35 ft down. In some cases there is a necessity to go deeper with an artesian well of several hundred ft. Well depth varies depending on what part of the country one is in. In the mountainous areas springs are common.
I don't think the US has a problem with power supply. Here on the east coast our grid has been rock solid for as long as I can remember with the only notable outages being due to natural disaster ie. hurricanes. We do get the random outage from severe thunderstorms but it is usually short lived being an hour or less. Our energy supplier is regulated by the state and is required to spend a certain amount on infrastructure per year to prevent problems like they are experiencing in California. I have no doubt that the issues in California are in part due to corporate greed but also of their own doing.
Speaking of natural disasters, that is the biggest driving force behind the average American having a back up generator and some semblance of a plan for self sufficiency. Every part of the country battles severe weather of some sort. Here on the east coast it is hurricanes and tornadoes, in the midwest it is tornadoes, and on the west coast it is flooding and wild fires. Don't get me wrong, there is a huge part of the population that has no plan for anything but many do.
From an outsiders POV, the US is a pretty interesting and curious place.
For the land of the Free, in many ways it does not seem you are very free at all in many circumstances. It also seems for a very developed country the US is in many ways very backwards.
Here these days only the smallest and most remote outback towns would be on tank water. Rural properties, yes, many on tank water but would be nothing like 50% of places on tank/ bore water.
It also seems odd that such a country would have such a problem with power supply. Not counting this incidence but nothing for people in suburbia to have a whole house generator in the states where they are only just starting to become available here at a retail level.
A lot of it is the differences in the continents and population density. Isn't most of Australia's population fairly concentrated in certain coastal area's? Here, a population roughly 13.5 times that of Australia, 330M vs 25M, uses the entire land area roughly 1.25 times the area of Australia, 3.8 Million square miles vs 3 Million. It comes down to logistics and cost effectiveness. In a lot of parts of the country what it would cost a municipality to run water service to rural areas would take longer than the life expectancy of the infrastructure to recoup the expense. And, that is assuming the municipality has a water source sufficient enough to serve their area which isn't always the case.
This is unheard of here. Getting arrested for having a rain water tank? WTF? I also -heard- that in some places it is illegal to grow your own vegetables and sell them or even give them to a neighbour or anyone else. That's like a tradition in Oz. Not so long back nearly every home had a veggie garden and neighbours would even collude as to what they were going to grow so as to be able to exchange with their neighbour what they didn't have themselves.
Wow betide any gubbermint that even hinted you couldn't give vegetables to your neighbour or friends!
It's a legal REQUIREMENT in every state far as I'm aware, that you MUST have a water tank on any new or largely renovated property.
MANY people have blocks of land they put an old shack or caravan on as a weekender holiday place. Many you may need a building permit or may not be allowed to put a permanent living structure on but for short/ Holiday stays, not a problem. There is so much land here that's not good for anything else. you can't graze or farm it, what else can you do with otherwise useless land? You build a Humpy, put in some corrugated iron tanks, Dig a shitter, maybe bathe in the creek and set up a rough kitchen and think you are in paradise!
There are a lot of things you can do in the US that just wouldn't be attempted here like drive an unregistered car round the streets but there are so many other things that seem such basic rights/ ways of life to us that are not permitted in the US. We still can't get over the fact you can't drink till you are 21. Legal age is 18 here and it's policed heavily to stop the 16yo's getting into bars. Of course I was going anywhere I wanted at 15 and back then I was NEVER questioned or asked for ID. Couldn't get away with that now.
Don't believe the hype. Rain water collection is pretty common everywhere. There have been cases where some crunchy hippie type has decided to move into the suburbs and disconnect from public utilities in an attempt to live off of the land.
That is where rain catchment, generator power, and sewage come into question. There are some basic standards intended to protect the general public health that are required for the sake of everyone. I tend to agree with most of them. I will say that I definitely don't want my neighbor 40 ft away showering with rain water in their back yard and shitting in an outhouse or 5 gallon bucket. That is the type scenario where these stories come from and they then get used as propaganda for whatever plight someone is trying to protest.
In some areas rain water catchment has become mandatory. Not for use but because with population growth the municipal sewer/storm drain systems are getting overwhelmed. Holding cisterns are being installed below grade to catch rain water until it can percolate into the soil instead of going down the municipal storm drain.
Colorado is an interesting case study. Until about 15 years ago it was a very conservative rural area but has now been inundated by a bunch of hippie type thinkers mainly from California that have definitely changed the status quo. It is definitely creating some issues and changing the way things are done. That is how some of these stories have come about. They are not the norm but a particular instance with an unknown set of circumstances that precipitated a particular outcome. Usually occurring after much interaction between the community, local government, and who knows who else for who knows what reasons.
I am sure there have been cases where local government has overstepped it's authority and one hopes those situations get resolved in court. I have heard of instances where a citizen has sued and been awarded monetary damages where the local government has overstepped.