by Greg Walcher, E&E Legal Senior Policy Fellow
The Daily Sentinel
Last week when some marauding teens bashed a mailbox with a bat, angry neighbors posted on nextdoor.com, “there needs to be a law against that.” Is that just an impulse reaction, or do they really not know there is a law against that. Since 1909, it has been a federal offense to tamper with, vandalize, deface, or destroy mailboxes, under penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
People often think things ought to be illegal that already are, that we should regulate things we already do, even that things ought to be defined that already are. I couldn’t help wondering how serious last week’s headlines were, announcing that several environmental industry groups had petitioned the Bureau of Reclamation to stop allowing water to be wasted in California, Arizona, and Nevada. The petition calls for an understandable definition of “reasonable and beneficial use” because the bureau says its dams and reservoirs can only deliver water that is “reasonably required for beneficial use.”
A law professor who represents the petitioning groups says she just doesn’t know what that means. “As best as we could tell, [the bureau has] never defined the phrase and it does not use the phrase in any meaningful way as it’s making water delivery decisions,” she said. The petition was filed by one national and nine local environmental groups. Some of their members might be forgiven for not knowing nuances of western water law, but it would be breathtaking if a law professor teaching the subject really doesn’t know that “beneficial use” has been well understood in the West for over a century. Wasting water is explicitly prohibited, and “beneficial use” explicitly defined, in the laws of every western state.
The AP headline read, “The Colorado River is in trouble. Some groups want the government to step up.” In fact, the government has been threatening the seven states that share the river for years, and during the past decade states have been working endlessly to negotiate an ongoing management strategy for drought years. The petition “argues” that reducing water waste could help ensure the river has a sustainable future — as if there is any argument about that. Another professor, similarly wrapped around the axle on this issue, says, “We don’t have a management future for the Colorado River right now and it’s getting pretty scary.”
