Summary for Friday January 22nd

Today, we discussed water law in the USA. Water rights laws in the eastern USA are based around the "riparian doctrine" in which the water rights are legally connected to land ownership. In the inter mountain west, the "doctrine of prior appropriation" aka the "Colorado" doctrine. Following this lecture, you should be able to differentiate between riparian and prior appropriation water law (and describe the differences) and be able to discuss where each is practiced (not every single state but the general areas)- see below.


Our introduction to US water law allowed us to better understand the legality of rainwater harvesting in certain US states. We looked specifically at UT and CO where collection is either illegal (UT) or was illegal (CO) and now is only illegal for most people. The basis for outlawing the harvesting of rainwater is that, under the doctrine of prior appropriation, the owner of the land (and collector of the rainwater) is generally not the owner of the water that falls on that land (as the land and water rights are owned separately). UT and CO both choose to interpret these laws to prohibit (or severely restrict) rainwater harvesting while states such as NM and AZ (also prior appropriation states) have many communities that encourage rainwater harvesting. You should be able to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of rainwater harvesting systems, how these disadvantages can be addressed, where rainwater harvesting is most effective, the basic design of a rainwater capture system (at varying levels of complexity), and the use of financial intensives (such as LEED certification, tax breaks) and disincentives (such as differential stormwater taxes) in promoting rainwater harvesting.

Additionally, you should be familiar with the following concepts: reasonable use principle, correlative rights principle, “first in time, first in right”, rainwater harvesting, cistern, LEED.

On Monday we will be discussing the recent earthquake in Haiti in the context of water resources, please read:

Frantic race against time to get clean water to Haiti quake survivors by Ed Pilkington and Peter Beaumont - an fairly general article in the Guardian (UK) about the situation

Water for Haiti: Now by Peter Gleick - an op-ed in the San Fransisco Chronicle by the President of the Pacific Institute

A Recovery Built on Water by Steven Solomon - an op-ed in the NY Times (Some articles in the NY Times require registration - registration is free and takes about five minutes)

You may also want to read Tectonics of the Haitian earthquake by Chris Rowan - which is probably the best short summary of the geology of the quake that I have found on the web.

PowerPoint slides shown in lecture today are now available as a .pdf on Sakai.

The my maps page has been updated with the locations mentioned in today's lecture.

Don't forget the homework assignment that is due on Monday.