Water Law Commons^™

Clear As Mud: How Heldermon V. Wright Missed An Opportunity To Clarify Oklahoma's Murky Water Law, H. Cole Marshall

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Panel: Ethics-Based Decision-Making In Societal Water Management, Amy Hardberger

Faculty Articles

There is an ethical overlay to water-related decision-making and management, frequently drawing on personal experiences with water and the ubiquitous need for water. The modern South African Bill of Rights, ensuring its people’s access to water; the movement towards recognizing water as a basic human right; and even occurrences in Texas, including the passage of “environmental flows legislation” and the efforts to preserve and protect the Edwards Aquifer, reflect the presence of ethics in decision-making with respect to water management. Ethics are a part of water management decision-making.

Water Transfers: The Case Against Transbasin Diversions In The Eastern States, Christine A. Klein

UF Law Faculty Publications

Water policy in the western states consistently has embraced a nineteenth century, supply-side mentality, requiring cities and other water providers to satisfy an ever-growing demand for water at virtually any cost. As a result, the western states rely upon thousands of engineered water transfers-even siphoning water from one side of mountain ranges to the other-in an un-sustainable attempt to support growth. This article challenges the conventional reliance upon transbasin diversions as a response to shortage. It argues that importing water from distant watersheds lulls growing communities into a false sense of security, subsidizes unsustainable growth, and exacts significant social, economic, …

The Centennial Of The Boundary Waters Treaty: A Century Of United States-Canadian Transboundary Water Management, Noah D. Hall

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Climate Change And Great Lakes Waters Resources: Avoiding Future Conflicts With Conservation, Noah D. Hall, Bret B. Stuntz

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Political Externalities, Federalism, And A Proposal For An Interstate Environmental Impact Assessment Policy, Noah D. Hall

Law Faculty Research Publications

Interstate environmental harms, which occur when decisions or actions in one state produce negative environmental impacts in another state, have challenged environmental law and American federalism for over a century. While even the strongest advocates of state primacy in environmental policy concede that interstate environmental harms necessitate federal governance, federal adjudication and regulation have had only modest success in addressing the problem. This is due, in part, to a failure to fully understand the causes of interstate environmental harms. This article provides a newframeworkfor understanding interstate environmental harms as political externalities caused by a combination of inadequate information, public process …

State Practice In The Management And Allocation Of Transboundary Ground Water Resources In North America, Gabriel Eckstein, Amy Hardberger

Faculty Scholarship

Throughout the world, international and state political boundaries divide ground water resources into politically convenient jurisdictions. Subsurface water, however, does not recognize such borders and flows freely without regard to overlying politics. This disregard for the political dimension, coupled with the growing global importance of fresh water, has the potential for aggravating disputes and conflicts over the use, allocation, and preservation of such resources. To date, widely accepted norms of international law applicable to transboundary aquifers have yet to emerge. However, local and regional agreements, including both formal and unofficial arrangements, suggest the emergence of state practice that should be …

The 1997 U.N. Watercourses Convention: Retrospect And Prospect, Stephen C. Mccaffrey

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

The Clean Water Act's Antidegradation Policy: Has It Been "Dumped"?, 42 J. Marshall L. Rev. 209 (2008), Katherine A. Zogas

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Climate Change, Regulatory Fragmentation, And Water Triage, Robin Kundis Craig

University of Colorado Law Review

Viewed from a watershed perspective, we are unconsciously sacrificing many marine ecosystems because upstream fresh water is a regulatorily fragmented resource. That is, water is subject to multiple assertions of regulatory authority and to multiple types of use-right claims that those authorities regulate. As freshwater supplies become increasingly unequal to the task of meeting the multiple demands for both consumptive and in situ use, and as consumptive and in situ uses of water come increasingly into irreconcilable conflict, the various regulatory schemes governing water use have also increasingly come into legal conflict. These courtroom battles have revealed many tensions, overlaps, …

Settlement Of The Acf Controversy: Sisyphus At The Dawn Of The 21st Century, Robert H. Abrams

Journal Publications

The ancient Greek myth in which Sisyphus is condemned to perpetually roll a massive boulder up a hill only to have it fall back down now symbolizes repetitive, ultimately fruitless effort. The Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) basin rapidly has become the emblem of Sisyphean water conflict in the eastern United States. It has the potential to rival some of the West's long-running water disputes, although it will never challenge the Colorado River in that regard.

At the outset, it is important to recognize that there are many parties with an interest in the ACF basin. The most prominent in recent years are …

Climate Change And Freshwater Resources, Robert H. Abrams, Noah D. Hall, Bret B. Stuntz

Journal Publications

Earth's climate is warming. This is the unequivocal conclusion of climate scientists. Despite the complexities of climatology, certain consistent trends emerge with implications for water availability: as the world gets warmer, it will experience increased regional variability in precipitation, with more frequent heavy precipitation events and more susceptibility to drought. These simple facts will have a profound impact on freshwater resources throughout the United States, as the warmer climate will reduce available water supplies and increase water demand. Unfortunately, current water law and policy are not up to the new challenges of climate change and resulting pressures on freshwater resources. …

Boundary Waters Treaty Of 1909 As A Model For Interjurisdictional Water Governance, Robert H. Abrams

Journal Publications

In an age of increasing interjurisdictional water conflict and water management concern, the list of accomplishments of the Boundary Water Treaty of 1909 (BWT), reached in a harmonious manner, raises the possibility that, perhaps, the management mechanisms of the BWT might beneficially be used in other contexts. This Article will take up that possibility in the context of three contemporary American interstate water allocation disputes. These disputes are (1) a relatively simple cross-border complaint by a downstream state, South Carolina, that North Carolina cities are using too much water of the Catawba River; (2) the basin-wide dispute regarding water use …

A Non-Indian Entity Is Polluting Indian Waters: "Water" Your Rights To The Waters, And "Water" You Gonna Do About It?, Sean M. Hanlon

Montana Law Review

Indian Water Rights

Unbundling Property In Water, Sandra B. Zellmer, Jessica Harder

Faculty Law Review Articles

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that, in the foreseeable future, climate change will exacerbate water problems worldwide. In the United States, we are likely to see more severe flooding, more frequent droughts, and a rush to secure legal rights to water supplies. Sustainable management of water resources for present and future generations will become all the more imperative as we face increasing pressure on limited supplies. The quest for sustainable management has stimulated a movement for greater recognition of private property rights to attain efficient use and allocation of water. The World Bank and the International …

Water Marketing As An Adaptive Response To The Threat Of Climate Change, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Whereas there has been substantial research on the potential effect of climate change upon water resources, there has been relatively little consideration of the role of institutional arrangements in mitigating (or exacerbating) the potential effects of warming-induced changes in water supplies. Climate change increases the urgency with which water managers and policymakers must address water supply concerns, moving toward water supply institutions and policies that are sufficiently flexible, adaptive, and robust to deal with the uncertain water future. As the LPCC has concluded, "changes in water management practices will have a very significant impact on how climate change affects the …

Maine V. Johnson: A Step In The Wrong Direction For The Tribal Sovereignty Of The Passamaquoddy Tribe And The Penobscot Nation, Whitney Austin Walstad

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Privatization, Efficiency, Gender, Development, And Inequality— Transnational Conflicts Over Access To Water And Sanitation, Srini Sitaraman

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace by Vandana Shiva. Boston, MA: South End Press, 2005.

and

Gender, Water, and Development edited by Anne Coles and Tina Wallace. New York: Berg, 2005.

and

Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power by Sanjeev Khagram. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.

Interstate Groundwater Resources: The Federal Role, John D. Leshy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Global Climate Change: Water Supply Risks And Water Management Opportunities, Brian E. Gray

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

In Praise Of Joe Sax, John D. Leshy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Where's The Beef? Facilitating Voluntary Retirements Of Federal Lands From Livestock Grazing, John D. Leshy, Molly S. Mcusic

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Environmental Law, Brooks Meredith Smith, Andrea West Wortzel

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

International Law's Lessons For The Law Of The Lakes, Joseph W. Dellapenna

Working Paper Series

The eight Governors of the Great Lakes States signed a proposed new compact for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence basin on December 13, 2005, and they joined with the Premiers of Ontario and Québec in a parallel agreement on the same topic on the same day. Neither document is legally binding—the proposed new compact because it has not yet been ratified by any state nor consented to by Congress; the parallel agreement because it is not intended to be legally binding. Both documents are designed to preclude the export of water from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin apart from …

Baselines Newsletter, No. 1, Fall 2007, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

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

No abstract provided.

Introduction, G. Emlen Hall

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

United States Supreme Court Rules Epa Must Take Action On Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Massachusetts V. Epa, Saillan De Charles

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Local Agriculture Perspectives In The Middle Rio Grande Valley, Cecilia Rosacker-Mccord

Publications

No abstract provided.

'Milking' Oil Tankers: The Paradoxical Effect Of The Oil Pollution Act Of 1990, Inho Kim

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Removing "The Cloak Of A Standing Inquiry": Pollution Regulation, Public Health, And Private Risk In The Injury-In-Fact Analysis, Robin Kundis Craig

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.