Google earth to locate water, then knocking on doors, or tax records & phone calls to locate owners if the land is vacant. Once I have located a possible site on google earth, I attempt to physically lay eyes on it WITHOUT trespassing. If the property is lived on, go to the front door FIRST!! If nobody is home, leave - DO NOT walk around to check it out. Come back later, nobody wants strangers wandering around their property when they're not home (-; If nobody lives on the land, maybe their name will be on a POSTED sign. Check with neighbors, they may know the owners. State/County/City/Municipal parks, check with the onsite office first. If they cannot grant permission, they can direct you to who can. Don't rule out ANY site, our club pond is a municipal water treatment facility about 20 miles from D.C., a Homeland Security protected site. My personal test ponds are in an apple orchard & a public campground. Cacapon State Park in W.VA. was as simple as walking into the ranger station & asking. They had a fishing/swimming/paddle boat lake with an upper resivoir to keep the main lake full, that resivoir is where I can run. Same situation as the campground, both pounds with no fishing or swimming or boating allowed. I would suggest that you start with just a few practicing wherever you get, just to "gently" expose any people to what we do. Odds are, they will come over to watch & talk. Stop, take the time with them, develop a relationship before you jump right into holding races. You may figure out that they won't want all that & just have a good test pond. Sometimes going in asking about going all out right away may turn some folks off, precluding even getting practice water. You may end up talking to an individual, a head park ranger, the city council or county commissioners. Worst any of them can do is say no, just gotta search, locate & ask. Knocking on doors seems to work best alone, city council would be a club presentation, IMHO. These approaches have worked well here around the nation's capitol, & these folks around here are as uptight as anyone anywhere!! LOL