AK • Miner seeks river rights

CO • Recreation rights stave off change

APRIL 19 | Colorado recreation groups continue to stave off agricultural attempts to throw sharp limits around the amount of water which can be held as rights for recreation purposes.
The measure sought by farm interests is Colorado Senate Bill 37, which critics say would givewater right now used for recreation - most notably kayaking - into a limited and secondary status. The measure passed the Senate, but controversy developed over the last couple of months, and the measure appears to be on hold in the House. Efforts at compromise were, however, underway by mid-April. [see the Sterling (CO) Journal-Advocate, April 18]

TAKING ON THE MEXICO CITY FORUM A guest opinion in the Cook County News Herald of Grand Marais, Minnesota, blasted the approach taken at the March Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City which equated water rights with human rights.
"After the first day of the meeting, however, it became clear that the government and corporate agents were only interested in turning water management into a business opportunity, whereupon the NGOs and activists established an alternative forum intent on identifying access to clean water as a fundamental right . . . If we accept the position that water is a common good, and an inalienable right shared by all people, does that mean that folks in China or France have as much right to Lake Superior’s water as we do?
Perhaps we would be better served if we didn’t use the concept of human rights to justify our control of Lake Superior’s water, but rather, focused on Cibber’s observation that possession is eleven points in the law."