Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
5
CHAPTER
ON GOVERNING WATER
There is water law and then there is water politics, and you can't
separate the two.
—Roger W. Sims, partner, Holland & Knight,
specializing in water resources and
environmental and land-use law
I
n the United States, water is allocated based on a complex system
of regulations that vary drastically from place to place. Those rules
are interpreted differently by different parties. Interested parties
regularly fi ght over who gets what, when they do or don't get it, how
much they get, for how long they will get it, and who is left out.
For the vast majority of Americans, turning on the faucet yields
bountiful water even in areas suffering from drought or water short-
ages. Behind the scenes, however, it's very different, especially as
demands for the resource grow and supplies dwindle. Water and
the laws that regulate it are complicated at best and confounding at
worst.
Water laws—some dating back to the colonial era—vary by
locale, region, state, and beyond, and often depend on legal inter-
pretations. Nonetheless, these laws are the legacy that water users
across the nation have had to learn to live with in wet times and dry.
Change is slow and, with so many stakeholders, tough to come by.
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