Background of the Riparian Doctrine

In 1963, Professor T.E. Lauer, then an assistant professor of law at the University of Missouri, published an article on The Common Law Background of the Riparian Doctrine in the Missouri Law Review.  You will find it here:.
Lauer, Common Law Background of the Riparian Doctrine

Water Markets

Water rights markets have become popular in recent years as a method to transfer assets serving less economic uses to those uses generating greater return or serving more people.  Critics name as problems:  conversion of natural resources to commodities, aggrandizement of priority-based allocation benefits, causation of artificial value, and personal enrichment of transferors.  The notion that water is a public asset is also offended.  But transactions in water rights are not easy.  The attributes of the individual rights taken to market are not uniform.  In fact they are highly disparate, due to their source of origin (common law, state or federal statute), defined place of use, and, where rights (and consequent resource allocation) are prioritized by time or category of use, by power to dislocate other existing rights.  As a consequence, water rights transfers are often highly regulated, with the objective of minimizing disturbance to water source or conflict among water users in the transferor or transferee water use system.  Also, as a consequence, attempts at creating water markets more like commodity markets, where fungible assets are exchanged, have not yet been successful.

You will find a presentation on the subject of water markets’ place in the spectrum of securities, commodity, real estate and public works market models here:

Water Market Presentation

Equal Protection Logic Statements

The rationale of the U,S. Supreme Court in Equal Protection cases is sometimes difficult to comprehend.  The several approaches used can, however, be reduced to simple logic statements that may aid the more mathematically-oriented, perhaps including water engineers and managers.  You will find those logic statements here:

Equal Protection Logic Statements

Information about J. Davenport

Information about J. Davenport can be found here:  James Davenport's Resume

Tribal and Environmental Water Rights and the Equal Protection Clause

Tribal and environmental water rights require some unique consideration under the Equal Protection Clause due to those rights' origins and character.  You will find a discussion of these at the link below:

Tribal and Environmental Water Rights and the Equal Protection Clause

From the source of the Columbia River, a quiet spring pool at Canal Flats, Canada, betwixt the Canadian Rockies on the east and Columbia Mountains on the west, to the mouth of the Colorado River in Mexico at the Sea of Cortes (Gulf of California), the West's two largest rivers provide major economic and environmental value to the western states.

Canal Flats

  

Columbia River Spring Pool at Canal Flats

Colorado River Delta at the Sea of  Cortes

   

   

Unconstitutional "Takings" of Water Rights

Do governmental regulatory, contractual, or proprietary actions that interfere with private rights to use water, generically characterized as “water rights,” comprise an unconstitutional taking of those rights in a manner that requires compensation under the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution?  You will find an article on this subject, originally published at 9 University of Denver Water Law Review 1 (Fall 2005), at the link below:

Governmental Interference with the Use of Water: When Do Unconstitutional "Takings" Occur?