High cost of water litigation

APRIL 7, 2006 | Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline reported on Wednesday that in his first two years in office, the overall cost of litigation and travel expenses dropped compared to the last two years of his predecessor. But water wasn't contributing to the savings. His office reported, "Kansas' legal battle with Colorado over water rights accounted for the highest expense.
In reviewing the expenses, the Kansas City Star reported that in a single instance, "Last year the New Mexico law firm of Montgomery & Andrews P.A. was paid $470,506 to represent the state in those cases."

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."