Water Law Commons^™

Getches Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Winter/Spring 2013, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment Newsletter (2013-)

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“Have A Coke And A Smile”: Is The Aqueduct Alliance Coca- Cola’S Solution To Escape Future Liability For Groundwater Depletion?, Alyssa Carroll

Global Business & Development Law Journal

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Preserving Trans-Boundary Aquifers: A Precious Resource For Our Future Generations, Russell Frink

Global Business & Development Law Journal

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Chapter 215: Clarifying The Roles Of Water Providers In Southern California, Michelle Chester

McGeorge Law Review

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Local Flood Control: Using Idaho's Flood Control District Statute To Enable Place-Based Stream Restoration, Jerrold A. Long

Articles

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Gauging The Success Of The Coeur D'Alene Lake Management Plan: An Example Of Tribal-State Cooperation, Dylan R. Hedden-Nicely

Articles

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Interstate Water Compacts: A License To Hoard?, Linda Christie

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

The purpose of this essay is to familiarize readers with the facts and background of these issues in this important case, and to lay out the policy implications inherent in its resolution. This Article begins by providing some background and history regarding management of, and disputes over, water in the United States, with an emphasis on the value of interstate compacts in resolving and preventing disputes. The path of the current dispute between Texas and Oklahoma requires the Article to trace three things: (1) describing the creation of the Red River Compact as well as its terms; (2) detailing TRWD’s …

Plugging The Democracy Drain In The Struggle For Universal Access To Safe Drinking Water, Tara Paul

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Privatization of water delivery services has become a global trend as states seek ways to shift both political and economic costs to private actors. The advantage of privatization is that it relieves governments of the daunting expense of repairing and expanding water infrastructure in order to improve quality and reach marginalized communities. But water privatization has also been deeply criticized for corrupt practices, increasing prices to the poor, undermining human rights objectives, and dodging accountability. This note aims to find middle ground, acknowledging that privatization is an important tool to increase freshwater access, but that treating water as a human …

Resilience In Transboundary Water Governance: The Okavango River Basin, Barbara Cosens

Articles

When the availability of a vital resource varies between times of overabundance and extreme scarcity, management regimes must manifest flexibility and authority to adapt while maintaining legitimacy. Unfortunately, the need for adaptability often conflicts with the desire for certainty in legal and regulatory regimes, and laws that fail to account for variability often result in conflict when the inevitable disturbance occurs. Additional keys to resilience are collaboration among physical scientists, political actors, local leaders, and other stakeholders, and, when the commons is shared among sovereign states, collaboration between and among institutions with authority to act at different scales or with …

Winter 2013 Utton Center Newsletter, Utton Center, University Of New Mexico - School Of Law

Publications

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Fracking The Oil And Gas Trade Secrets Of The Marcellus Shale Natural Gas Play, Jeremy I. Maynard

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

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Investment Risks For Water Projects, Sharlene Leurig

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Unlike most of the developed world, where investor-owned water systems serve the majority of the population, the United States relies mostly on water provided by public systems. To a great extent, these systems were financed through the taxation authority of the federal government—the iconic Hoover Dam only one of the many hundreds of pipelines and reservoirs built by agencies such as the Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers for the benefit of local economic development. Similarly, many of the drinking and waste- water treatment facilities in operation today were built to help com- munities comply with the federal …

State Water Planning: Theory V. Practice In Texas, Mary E. Kelly

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

The essay shows that while the Texas water planning process is valu- able and important, its execution in practice is often flawed, resulting in over-estimates of the gap between projected demand and supply; new supply costs; lost opportunities for resolving real near-term needs through cost-effective solutions; and a limited ability to deal with criti- cal policy issues that will have significant effect on the state’s ability to sustainably manage its water resources for future generations.

The Shape Of Illusion: Water Law And Policy In The Fourth Dimension, George William Sherk

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

With these words, Colonel Nathan R. Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson in the movie A Few Good Men, expressed his outrage at being caught in a lie. The lie is not relevant to our purposes today. What is relevant is the fact that the truth eventually became known.

As we look to secure water supplies for the future, it is essential that decisions regarding the allocation and management of water resources be based as much as possible on truth, not on illusions created and perpetrated in the name of political expediency. As Col. Jessep could not stand being caught in …

Unique Coverage Issues In Flood Losses, Wayne D. Taylor, Arthur J. Park, Sean O'Brien

Faculty Works

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Coping With Water Scarcity, Risk & Uncertainty: Resilience & Hope, G. Tracy Mehan Iii

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

It is most appropriate that we gather here in Texas, a state blessed with a vibrant economy and robust population growth, but still coming to terms with a searing drought. Here we get a glimpse of the daunting circumstances impacting water supply and security throughout the United States. This is a good time and place to consider how we often undervalue a resource and commodity that is so important in our lives. In this way we can secure our future water supplies while coping with all the risks, challenges and opportunities this entails.

"Dropping" The Migratory Bird Treaty Act: The Negative Effects Of The Mbta On Property Rights And Human Health, Sabita Maharaj

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Federal law essentially handcuffs residents from protecting their health and their children’s health and severely restricts what they can do to protect their property from MBTA-protected birds. The usefulness of these laws is no longer justifiable. While it is necessary for human enjoyment and the balance of the ecosystem to protect animals, protection should not come at the expense of human health and property use and enjoyment.

Powering The Tap Dry: Regulatory Alternatives For The Energy-Water Nexus, Amy Hardberger

University of Colorado Law Review

In 2008, while Atlanta residents freely watered their lawns, several nuclear power plants in Georgia almost shut down due to drought-induced water scarcity. This absurd reality stemmed from the misunderstood and almost wholly unregulated relationship between energy and water. Water and energy are indivisibly linked and interwoven into every aspect of our culture and lifestyle. Large quantities of water are required to generate energy, and energy is required at all stages of the water supply process including pumping, treating, and end uses. While much has been written recently on the numeric relationship between these sectors, little has been proposed from …

The Shale Oil And Gas Revolution, Hydraulic Fracturing, And Water Contamination: A Regulatory Strategy, Thomas W. Merrill, David M. Schizer

Faculty Scholarship

The United States has surpassed Russia as the world's top natural gas producer, and according to the world's most respected energy forecaster, the U.S. will also overtake Saudi Arabia as the largest oil producer by 2020. This surge in U.S. oil and gas production would have seemed wildly improbable a decade ago. It flows from a revolution in U.S. oil and gas production. Energy companies have learned to tap previously inaccessible oil and gas in shale and other impermeable (or "tight") rock formations. To do so, they use "hydraulic fracturing" ("fracturing" or "fracking"), pumping fluid into shale at high pressure …

Our Place In The World: A New Relationship For Environmental Ethics And Law, Jedediah S. Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

Forty years ago, at the birth of environmental law, both legal and philosophical luminaries assumed that the new field would be closely connected with environmental ethics. Instead, the two grew dramatically apart. This Article diagnoses that divorce and proposes a rapprochement. Environmental law has always grown through changes in public values; for this and other reasons, it cannot do so without ethics. Law and ethics are most relevant to each other when there are large open questions in environmental politics: lawmakers act only when some ethical clarity arises; but law can itself assist in that ethical development. This process is …