My new book, Modern Water Law: Private Property, Public Rights, and Environmental Protections, has been published by Foundation Press and is available on Amazon. I was honored to work with two superb co-authors on this book - Robert Adler, Interim Dean and James I. Farr Chair in Law, and Robin Kundis Craig, William H. Leary Professor of Law, both at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law.
Modern Water Law: Private Property, Public Rights, and Environmental Protection provides a comprehensive text to study the range of legal issues and doctrines that affect water resources in the United States. The field of water law has evolved considerably in recent decades, expanding well beyond historic common-law doctrines of riparian reasonable use and prior appropriation. Modern Water Law thus offers a new conceptual approach to the field of water law as an integration of (1) private property (the common-law doctrines for riparian reasonable use and prior appropriation, as well as groundwater rights and the statutory schemes for administering water use rights), (2) public rights (navigation, the public trust doctrine, federal reserved rights, and interstate water management), and (3) environmental protections (the energy-water nexus, water pollution, and endangered species conflicts). The modern practice of water law requires attorneys to understand the interactions between different legal doctrines and regimes and how potential conflicts among them can be resolved in practice. Modern Water Law will prepare students and practitioners for the challenges of 21st century water law.
Below is a summary of Contents (for more details, see the full Table of Contents):
1. IntroductionPART I: PRIVATE PROPERTY RIGHTS TO USE WATER
2. Riparian Law
3. History and Principles of Prior Appropriation
4. Groundwater
5. Modern Application of Water Law
PART II: PUBLIC RIGHTS AND INTERESTS IN WATER
6. Control and Ownership of Navigable Waters
7. Public Rights in Water: The Public Trust Doctrine
8. Federal Water Interests
9. Interstate Water Pollution, Apportionment and Management
10. The Water-Energy Nexus
PART III: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION OF WATER RESOURCES
11. The Intersection of Water Quality and Water Quantity
12. The Federal Endangered Species Act, Water Management, and Water Rights
13. Protecting and Restoring Watersheds and Water Systems
14. Public Interests, Private Rights in Water, and Constitutional Takings Claims