Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
After an additional century of expansion and integration, the United States had
formed an independent system of government that was unique in the history of
civilization. This union fractured under the issues of slavery and states rights after
the initial century, only to reunite for the great expansion westward. During this
final phase of national unification, the land became the motivation for settlement,
and vast portions of the new territories (taken from the native cultures by conquest
and confinement) were given away as incentive for settlement. Property was
now controlled by the new settlers, who vigorously defended their rights of
ownership.
All existing and new citizens had the legal right to use their land as they saw
fit, and the extraction of mineral resources, from coal to gold, became a part of
this right. As the new American landscape was taking form, those who cultivated
and those who used the land for grazing of livestock had different ideas about
both land and water use law, and local regulations evolved in each state to serve
their needs.
The corresponding water laws that were formulated by states west of the
Mississippi were structured differently from the Eastern water regulations, with
the “right” to extract groundwater treated in a fashion similar to that of minerals
and petroleum. Although the initial legal structure of the colonies was patterned
after the English legal system, the evolving American legal process now perceived
land as a right of citizenship, giving wide latitude to the property owner as to
use and alteration, including removal of woodlands, grading and regrading of
the soil mantle (including removal and filling), extraction of subsurface deposits,
and other actions that effectively destroy the natural system. The impacts of these
actions on the land's water resources, both surface and subsurface, have come to
be regulated only to the extent that the public welfare is affected. Until recently,
this water impact has been measured by changes in water quality, assuming that
the degradation of surface waters is harmful to public health, and is protected
under the common law.
The American vision of conquering the wilderness, clearing the forest, tilling
the field, and damming the mighty river seemed reasonable as long as the natural
resources of land and water were unlimited and could be exploited without fear
of loss. However, our perception in the twenty-first century indicates that there
is indeed a limit to our use of natural resources, and we are slowly crafting a
new set of guidelines to sustain what remains. The concept of LID is informed
by this recognition.
5.3 THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK
The system of laws that regulate the use of land and the protection and man-
agement of water resources in the United States can be described in one simple
phrase; they are totally different and unrelated in form and structure. Although
we might all agree that what we do on the land has everything to do with what
happens in the water, both surface and ground, the legal system in the United
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