The legal framework for river use in the United States

Abstract

Use and development of rivers takes place within a complex legal framework that guides the actions of interested parties holding conflicting values. One of the major components of this legal framework is state water allocation law. This law takes several forms among the states, but its basic function is to establish rules for water use by assigning property rights in water. Another component of the legal framework for river use addresses the public access issue. The primary focus here is establishment of the boundary between the exclusive rights of landowners and the rights of the general public to use the surface and underlying beds of waterways. A third component consists of governmental controls over water use and development. These controls restrict the exercise of private property rights in the resource. From an initial focus of protecting the public right of navigation, this law has expanded to include protection of water quality and a variety of other environmental values. The current legal framework provides a relatively sound basis for balancing competing values and interests, but problems exist. For example, the division of water management responsibilities between the federal and state levels of government sometimes results in conflict, and existing procedures for managing conflict related to proposals for water transfer do not appear to be adequate. Therefore, the current framework will not remain static; it must continue to evolve in order to operate more effectively and to incorporate future increases in knowledge and the associated changes in values and management needs.

Ecological preservation versus economic exploitation of natural resources: a happy marriage or a bitter divorce?

“…In the case of angling, there is an additional impact due to a possible over-exploitation of the resource, especially in the case where there is no stocking. When stocking is done, another impact is related to the use of non-authoctonous species and to eventual disturbances caused in the community structure (Cox, 1991;Azevedo & Formigo, 1996) Finally, in terms of the proper functioning of the water cycle, the main consequence of the human uses of fresh water is the degradation of its quality, which has two important consequences: it shortens the global availability of good quality water and it creates an increasing need to use artificial processes of water purification, which are much more expensive.…”