Officials Use Google Earth To Find Unlicensed Pools

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday August 3, 2010 @05:23AM from the eye-in-the-sky dept.

Officials in Riverhead, New York are using Google Earth to root out the owners of unlicensed pools. So far they've found 250 illegal pools and collected $75,000 in fines and fees. Of course not everyone thinks that a city should be spending time looking at aerial pictures of backyards. from the article: "Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC, said Google Earth was promoted as an aid to curious travelers but has become a tool for cash-hungry local governments. 'The technology is going so far ahead of what people think is possible, and there is too little discussion about community norms,' she said."

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When a pool fails... by crow · 2010-08-03 05:31 · Score: 5, Interesting

I had a friend who had a neighbor with an unlicensed above-ground pool. I'm not sure what went wrong, but one day it collapsed, sending all of the water into my friend's back yard, destroying everything there. Building permits are required for good reasons, and they're usually dirt cheap (less than 1% of the project cost). If you're hiring a contractor who doesn't get a building permit, then they're probably not doing it to save you money, but to allow them to skimp on important building code details that might end up costing you a huge amount.