Environmental Law Commons^™

Slides: Environmentally Friendly Drilling Systems Program, Rich Haut

Best Management Practices (BMPs): What? How? And Why? (May 26)

Presenter: Rich Haut, Houston Advanced Research Center

6 slides

Slides: Collaborative Planning And Lessons Learned, Matt Sura

Best Management Practices (BMPs): What? How? And Why? (May 26)

Presenter: Matt Sura, University of Colorado Law School

48 slides

Alternative Strategies For Managing Pharmaceutical And Personal Care Products In Water Resources, Gabriel Eckstein, George William Sherk

Faculty Scholarship

In recent decades, concern has grown over the presence of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in water. This concern stems from the possibility that the presence of PPCPs in water supplies may pose a threat to both human and environmental health. Such threats may be both direct (e.g., exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds) and indirect (e.g., emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria). The water treatment and wastewater treatment community has been especially concerned over PPCPs because of PPCPs ubiquitous nature and their ability to persist or only partially degrade in water and during wastewater treatment. Studies done over the past …

Community Growth And Land Use, Susan Kelly

Publications

No abstract provided.

About Sdlp

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Slides: Environmental Water In Australia, Chris Arnott

Conversation with Water Management Reps from Colorado and Australia: "Adapting to Climate Change: Lessons Learned from Australia" (February 14)

Presenter: Chris Arnott, Managing Director, Alluvium Consulting

30 slides

Slides: Adapting To Climate Change: Lessons Learnt From The Australian Water Experience, Will Fargher

Conversation with Water Management Reps from Colorado and Australia: "Adapting to Climate Change: Lessons Learned from Australia" (February 14)

Presenter: Will Fargher, National Water Commission, Australian Government

18 slides [4 have titles only and are missing images]

How The Law Mattered To The Mono Lake Ecosystem, Sherry A. Enzler

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Board reported
unprecedented degradation of ecosystems and the services they provide
to human well-being which, if allowed to continue, would adversely affect
human health, security, and welfare. Our environmental legal authorities,
however, are not designed to protect the health of our nation’s ecosystems,
focusing instead on clean air, clean land, and clean water as a
single medium, often referred to as the silo approach to environmental
protection. Protecting ecosystems requires a systemic approach to the
environment in both policy and law; this in turn requires a change in our
approach to environmental protection. How do …

Unnatural Resource Law: Situating Desalination In Coastal Resource And Water Law Doctrines, Michael Pappas

Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers the first legal analysis of desalination, the process of converting saltwater into freshwater. Desalination represents a key climate change adaptation measure because the United States has exploited nearly all of its freshwater resources, freshwater demands continue to grow, and climate change threatens to diminish significantly existing freshwater supplies. However, scholarship has yet to address the legal ambiguities that desalination raises in the context of property, water law, and coastal resource doctrines.

This Article addresses these ambiguities and suggests the legal adaptations necessary to accommodate desalination as a climate change adaptation. Under current legal doctrines, the chain of …

Baselines Newsletter, No. 7, Winter/Spring 2011, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Baselines: The Natural Resources Law Center Newsletter (2007-2011)

No abstract provided.

Enemy Of The People: The Need For Congress To Pass The Clean Water Restoration Act, Cathryn Henn

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

New Adventures Of The Old Bureau: Modern-Day Reclamation Statutes And Congress Unfinished Environmental Business, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

Congress established the reclamation program in 1902, and the hundreds of federal water projects built in the 20th century helped shape the West. Today, the Bureau of Reclamation plays an enormously important role in managing these projects. But with no big new dams to build, the Bureau has been forced to revise its mission to address todays water management challenges, such as stretching finite water supplies and restoring aquatic ecosystems. Through both site-specific enactments and programmatic statutes, Congress in recent years has given the Bureau new authority and direction to address these modern challenges. But Congress has left a significant …

Public On Paper: The Failure Of Law To Protect Public Water Uses In The Western United States, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

Water conflicts in the western United States increasingly arise from competition between traditional economic uses (especially irrigation, municipal supply and hydropower) and public uses (especially environmental protection and water-based recreation). Western United States water law, based on the prior appropriation doctrine, has always promoted maximizing ‘beneficial use’ of the resource and has effectively protected water allocations for traditional purposes. Public water uses also enjoy some legal protection, but it exists mostly on paper; in practice, neither statutory public interest provisions nor the non-statutory public trust doctrine has been widely effective. This paper identifies the relevant legal principles and briefly explains …

Water, Climate, And Energy Security, Elizabeth Burleson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Civil society participation can facilitate sound energy, climate, and water governance. This article analyzes the dynamics of transnational decision-making. Part II discusses sound energy strategy in light of a shrinking water-resources base due to climate change. Part III considers how public participation in international decision-making can sustain trust in governments and strengthen the legitimacy of legal decisions. Part IV concludes that process and outcome are both integral to addressing water, climate, and energy challenges.

Winter 2011 Utton Center Newsletter, Utton Center, University Of New Mexico - School Of Law

Publications

No abstract provided.

A Once And Future Gulf Of Mexico Ecosystem: Restoration Recommendations Of An Expert Working Group, Charles H. Peterson, Felicia C. Coleman, Jeremy B.C. Jackson, R. Eugene Turner, Gilbert T. Rowe, Richard T. Barber, Karen A. Bjorndal, Robert S. Carney, Robert K. Cowen, Jonathan M. Hoekstra, James T. Hollibaugh, Shirley B. Laska, Richard A. Luettich Jr., Craig W. Osenberg, Stephen E. Roady, Stanley Senner, John M. Teal, Ping Wang

Faculty Scholarship

The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) well blowout released more petroleum hydrocarbons into the marine environment than any previous U.S. oil spill (4.9 million barrels), fouling marine life, damaging deep sea and shoreline habitats and causing closures of economically valuable fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. A suite of pollutants — liquid and gaseous petroleum compounds plus chemical dispersants — poured into ecosystems that had already been stressed by overfishing, development and global climate change. Beyond the direct effects that were captured in dramatic photographs of oiled birds in the media, it is likely that there are subtle, delayed, indirect and potentially …

Constitutional Limitations On Land Use Controls, Environmental Regulations And Governmental Exactions (2011 Edition), Garrett Power

Faculty Scholarship

This electronic book is published in a searchable PDF format as a part of the E-scholarship Repository of the University of Maryland School of Law. It is an “open content” casebook intended for classroom use in courses in Land Use Control, Environmental Law and Constitutional Law. It consists of cases carefully selected from the two hundred years of American constitutional history which address the clash between public sovereignty and private property. It considers both the personal right to liberty and the personal right in property. The text consists of non-copyrighted material and readers are free to use it or re-mix …

The Dormant Commerce Clause And Water Export: Toward A New Analytical Paradigm, Christine A. Klein

UF Law Faculty Publications

Facing water shortages, states struggle with competing impulses, desiring to restrict water exports to other states while simultaneously importing water from neighboring jurisdictions. In 1982, the Supreme Court weighed in on this issue through its seminal decision, Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas. Determining that groundwater is an article of commerce, the Court held invalid under the dormant Commerce Clause a provision of a Nebraska statute limiting water export. The issue has again come into the national spotlight, as the Tarrant Regional Water District of Texas has challenged Oklahoma legislation limiting water exports, and as Wind River L.L C …

Mapping The Human Right To Water On The Colorado River, Bret C. Birdsong

Scholarly Works

Colorado River systems-both ecological and legal-are facing a coming crisis. The river snakes its way from the Rocky Mountain crest to the Gulf of California, draining 245,000 square miles encompassing parts of seven of the United States ("U.S.") and two Mexican states. The river and its tributaries provide drinking water for growing population of thirty million in an even larger area because some of its water is diverted to serve out-of-basin demands in both the U.S. and Mexico. Aside from bringing life-sustaining water to people for personal use, it provides irrigation water for some of the most valuable agricultural lands …

New Mexico’S Major Reservoirs: An Overview, Susan Kelly, Diego Urbina

Water Matters!

This paper describes the salient facts about the major water storage reservoirs in New Mexico. For each reservoir, we address the purposes of water storage allowed by law, storage capacity, the responsible operating agency, and some key operational issues. This is by necessity a vast simplification of the topic.Books, articles, research reports, operation manuals, and other materials on these topics run into the hundreds. Millions of dollars have been spent on technical studies and computer models to understand,and sometimes alter, the operations of various dams and reservoirs.

Urbanization, Water Quality, And The Regulated Landscape, Dave Owen

University of Colorado Law Review

Watershed scientists frequently describe urbanization as a primary cause of water quality degradation, and recent studies conclude that even in lightly-developed watersheds, urbanization often precludes attainment of water quality standards. This Article considers legal responses to this pervasive problem. It explains why traditional legal measures have been ineffective, and it evaluates several recent innovations piloted in the northeastern United States. These innovations are potentially applicable across the nation. Specifically, the innovations involve using impervious cover total maximum daily loads, residual designation authority, and collective permitting to expand, intensify, and modify regulatory control of urban stormwater. More generally, the innovations involve …

Water Law In The United States And Brazil--Climate Change & Two Approaches To Emerging Water Poverty, David N. Cassuto, Romulo S.R. Sampaio

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article examines two of the major water legal regimes in the Americas-that of Brazil and the United States. Both countries have extensive wet and dry regions and both hydro-regimes face a significant threat from global warming. Brazil, for instance, is home to between eight and fifteen percent of the world's fresh water, and its fast-growing economy and population present major challenges in management and allocation. The U.S. also faces major water allocation problems resulting from past settlement policies; unsustainable reclamation projects; and also fast-growing domestic, industrial and agricultural demand. In the United States, water has traditionally been perceived as …

Environmental Review Of Western Water Project Operations: Where Nepa Has Not Applied, Will It Now Protect Farmers From Fish?, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation operates hundreds of dams in seventeen western states, and storage and release of water at these dams often causes serious environmental impacts. In operating these dams, however, the Bureau has largely been excused from complying with the environmental review requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act. This article explains and analyzes relevant NEPA cases involving these Bureau projects, and argues that the Bureau may want to conduct NEPA reviews for project operations even if they are not legally required. It also describes and critiques District Judge Oliver Wangers recent decisions applying NEPA to the Bureau's …

Groundwater Policy In The Western United States, Denise D. Fort, Summer Mckean

Faculty Scholarship

Groundwater mining is inadequately addressed by state and federal policies in the United States. New Mexico's failure to manage groundwater aquifers has resulted in costly federal rescue projects. Better information and involvement of communities in groundwater policy would provide for more sustainable use of this resource.

Too Hot To Handle: Climate Change And Agricultural Water Use, Denise D. Fort

Faculty Scholarship

The world faces enormous challenges in responding to looming crises in food and water. Responding to this challenge will require flexibility; such flexibility may be impeded by legal institutions. This paper looks at the western United States and discusses the role of irrigated agriculture in that region. Because of climate change, a growing population, declining groundwater, the need to protect ecosystems and other conflicts, the author suggests that all water uses, including long-standing agricultural water rights, need to be examined in light of these changes. Legal systems have tended to serve the status quo, but perhaps the law can help …

Protecting Pocahontas's World: The Mattaponi Tribe's Struggle Against Virginia's King William Reservoir Project, Allison M. Dussias

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Responsive Regulation In Context, Circa 2011, Cristie Ford, Natasha Affolder

All Faculty Publications

In the fall of 2010, the University of British Columbia Faculty of Law welcomed a group of scholars from around the world to consider the state and evolution of responsive regulation, in both theory and practice. The occasion was the presence of Dr. John Braithwaite, the faculty's inaugural Fasken Martineau Senior Visiting Scholar.' Given that we are on the cusp of the twentieth anniversary of Ian Ayres and John Braithwaite's seminal book, Responsive Regulation: Transcending the Deregulation Debate,' it is appropriate that this issue begins with John Braithwaite's own reflections on the responsive regulation project. On one level, the set …

The Legal-Political Barriers To Ramping Up To Hydro, Dan Tarlock

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Hydroelectric energy is the oldest major source of non-carbon, renewable energy and is the only conventional renewable resource in the current energy mix. Increased hydro capacity would seem to be a key element of any United States energy policy designed to promote the greater use of renewable resources. However, for several decades hydro has been perceived as a mature, fully developed technology. This article argues that any effort to stimulate substantial new hydro capacity will face a series of environmental legal and policy constraints. Efforts to adapt to global climate change will further complicate efforts to increase hydro electric generation. …

Pooling For Horizontal Wells: Can They Teach An Old Dog New Tricks?, Bruce M. Kramer

Shale Plays in the Intermountain West: Legal and Policy Issues (November 12)

74 pages.

This paper was originally published as:

Bruce M. Kramer, “Pooling for Horizontal Wells: Can They Teach an Old Dog New Tricks?,” 55 Rocky Mt. Min. L. Inst. 8-1, § 8.05 (2009).

Slides: Shale Drilling And Completions, William Fleckenstein

Shale Plays in the Intermountain West: Legal and Policy Issues (November 12)

Presenter: William Fleckenstein, BP Adjunct Professor in the Petroleum Department and Director of PERFORM Research, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO, and Managing Partner of Fleckenstein, Eustes & Associates

20 slides