Legal History, Still fighting the COE

[tkwalker]

A little info from Rick Duty ... <'TK><

For your legal minds:



Background: Mono Lake is in the high Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. Water from other sources in the Owens River Valley were diverted to Los Angeles as early as 1913, essentially drying up rivers and lakes. Los Angeles acquired the water rights to Mono, and began draining it around 1940. The folks in the high country didn’t like the city slickers taking their water, and messing with their world-class trout fisheries. The California Water Wars had begun. Today, the damage is done. Mono is a foreboding looking mix of mineral spires and shallow waters that has served as background for science fiction films. But at least is has more water in it now, than was there when I started fishing the Owens River and Mammoth Lakes in the early ‘70s. The ‘water wars’ of California, beyond this example, may be a rich source of legal history / precedence.


http://www.monobasinresearch.org/tim...ublictrust.htm

In February of 1983, the California Supreme Court announced that the public trust doctrine applies to Mono Lake, a victory for advocates of the lake. Expanding the ancient doctrine to include recreational and aesthetic values and the importance of the lake to wildlife, as earlier decisions had established, the Court decreed that Mono Lake has “public trust values” that the state has an obligation to maintain. The Court ruled that the predecessor to the State Water Board had not taken these values into account when allowing Los Angeles to divert water from the Mono Basin, and that the water rights of Los Angeles and the public trust values of Mono Lake had to be more fairly balanced.

Though many questions remain about applying the public trust doctrine in other cases, the Mono Lake case clears up some of the it’s ambiguity. In earlier court cases, particularly Marks v. Whitney, the public trust doctrine had been understood to protect more than simply public access to certain resources; it also protects recreation, aesthetic values, and ecology. This interpretation was reinforced by the Mono Lake decision. The Mono Lake decision also provided another interpretation of the doctrine, one that gives it considerable force. Water rights in the West had been nearly invincible; the public trust doctrine, however, can insist that these rights be changed to protect resources belonging to the public, and the water rights holder will be given no compensation.

--R--

[Fishbus]

TK, all,

They also call those water interests the "Water Buffaloes".

As a transplant to Middle TN from Central California (I'm always in the middle), I can tell you that even if their opponents won a victory with Mono, Los Angeles still drives more than its share of policy there.

All the water that melts in the Sierras and drains into the valley (Kern, San Joaquin, Merced rivers) is put into concrete aqueducts so that not one drop can make it to the local water tables. It is then pumped over a 7000ft mountain range to LA for their consumption.

Meanwhile, the farming that grows %80 of the nation's green produce takes place in that valley and the farmers pump water from tables that are 40' lower than they used to be.

Rant off,

Billy