Water as a Public Trust

07/26/2017

"Lawmakers were briefed during a meeting Tuesday, July 25, at the state Capitol on the status of the project, which would pipe Missouri River water to eastern North Dakota during droughts. Ken Vein, second vice chairman of the Garrison Diversion Board, said they hope to receive the first construction bids in early 2019."

BISMARCK—Officials planning the Red River Water Supply Project hope for a quick resolution to a dispute over federal plans that could affect the project's water source.Lawmakers were briefed during a meeting Tuesday, July 25, at the state Capitol on the status of the project, which would pipe Missou...

03/27/2017

North Dakota works on attracting "Industrial Water Users".

The political climate for proceeding with the Red River Valley Water Supply Project looks good at the federal level, according to Duane DeKrey, general manager of the Garrison Diversion Conservancy District.DeKrey and other Garrison Diversion officials were in Washington, D.C., last week to talk wit...

03/27/2017

A brief recap: I started this effort with the good help of Ms Chaney about a year ago. The thought at that time, based on several months of literature searching and field experience, was that the likelihood of our water rights becoming usurped was high. Based on that notion, I drafted an initiative petition for your consideration. Tonight, I shall offer it up for your inspection.
That said, the reason for the long delay has been the unexpected changes politically that we all have now experienced.
Yesterday's posting expressed my view that We, the People now, more than ever in my four score years need to recover the "reins of Government" as Ben Franklin put it.
Missourian's have both the initiative and the referendum. I posted the question, "is it worth the effort"? To which I now answer, Hell Yes!
What and how can come later, but let me end with the proposed initiative :

"The waters of the state shall include all physical forms: surface, ground and atmospheric moisture. These resources are essential to all manner of life and to the health and welfare of the people.
By natural right, these resources belong to the people and shall not be sold, traded or degraded in any way except by the express will and super majority vote of the people.
These resources are entrusted to the government as a sacred Public Trust which, if abrogated in any way by any elected, appointed or salaried official shall be deemed a breach of Trust subject to dismissal or automatic recall.
The people have the right of the citizen suit outlining their grievances to the State Supreme Court for their consideration and remade in these matters.

Ok! What think you?

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03/26/2017

Thanks to a few concerned citizens starting in 1900, Missouri now has not only the initiative petition process but the referendum. Before I begin, bear in mind, the following pertains only to Missouri law.
The initiative allows citizens registered as voters to file papers with the Secretary of State that propose to create new law providing certain requirements are met. That is the easy part. Once approved by both the attorney general and the Secretary of State, the proponents then must collect sufficient signatures from registered voters before a date certain. If all conditions are met, the proposal then goes before the voters at the next election.
I've help collect signatures for three proposals so I know it is no easy task. To give you an idea of the extent of the enterprise, a proposed constitutional amendment ( state constitution ), has of 2014, needed a total of 200,000 verifiable signatures from all 10 congressional districts.
The referendum allows registered voters to overturn a law passed by the General Assembly and approved by the Governor. I'll bet one or two in this category come to mind for a few of my readers!
But, citizens must first about the deal beforehand. In my experience, I was amazed at the misinformation that I had to address before getting a signature.In times past, supporters even gave lectures throughout the state to answer questions: the point is, voters need to be on board even before the petitions are circulated.
So, until tomorrow night, the question is this: in the land of the Trumpasorus and the growing trash pile of laws, is the effort worth the while? Alternatively, what other options do we citizens have?

03/13/2017

So, where do we start?
There are two options, revitalize the national constitution or retool the state constitution.
1. The Constitution of the United States of America is a document that every citizen should have in their possession, preferable well broken in from frequent reference and quotable from memory. Unfortunately, that is not the case in spite of the fact that copies are so easy to get. The text ought to be as assessable to citizens as the Bible is to Christians or similar tomes to other faiths.
Even if you can find a copy anywhere, chances are it has not been read.
So the question is, how can you defend it if you don't know its contents and thereby, your rights.
In my estimation, the political mindsets that you may are not relate to, realize that citizens are either not knowledgable of the primary law of the land, and/ or don't care. In which case the mindsets in power feel free to "interpret" the law to their advantage and, quite possibly to your disadvantage.
So, when I say," revitalize" the Constitution, I mean it within the context of doing your civil homework: 1. Get a copy if you don't have one, and, 2. Read it...read it until you begin to understand it.
I'd like to think I might be able to muster up short courses on the topic, but have only begun to try. If I, we succeed, the word will go our.

2. State Government is a different matter all together since the framers of The Constitution of the State of Missouri had the advantage of experiencing the civil war and were part of the effort to carve a new state out of the Missouri Territory. It is significantly different in that the Bill of Rights is first and foremost. In addition the first statement clearly states that All the Power is in the People...which is to say, not the Governor, nor the legislature or any other branch of state government. The principal manifestation of that is the initiative process..citizen made law.
The second section of Article 1, the Bill Of Rights plainly states to what purpose the state government must act: "That all constitutional government is intended to promote the general welfare of the people, that all persons have a natural right to life, liberty, the per suit of happiness and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry; that all persons are created equal and are entitled to equal rights and opportunity under the law; that to give security to these things is the principal office of government, and that when government does not confer this security, it fails in its chief design".
I leave you to dwell on these words and ask yourself if our state government has lived up to these mandates, and if not...why?

03/10/2017

I don't really know how many times during my 40+ year career, that I was confronted by the statement, "there ought to be a law!"
Generally there was, but it just went to show that people had little to no conception about law in general and laws that might cover their specific concerns.
Now, I wish to "stipulate" ( that's lawyer talk!)
that I am not a lawyer. However, during my career with the Missouri Department of Conservation, I not only got heavily involved with the new environmental laws of the early 1970's, but had a great tutor in state law from the Department's attorney. I even had the opportunity to draft three different bills at the request of legislators, so I've seen the process from the inside.
So, to return to the question concerning the basic rights of citizens in our democratic republic I'll start with a favorite quote of mine attributable to ole' Ben Franklin.
The convention that cobbled our Constitution together was behind closed doors and with the windows locked shut and draped.
When the convention concluded, a woman asked Ben what had gone on the such secrecy.
His reply..."Madam we have given you the reins to your government....if you can keep them!"
So, how do we respond to Dr. Franklin?
In my estimation, we have not done very well.
Voter turnout is meager at best. We have the initiative process in our state, but getting persons to collect signatures can be tough.
But I'll say this, it has been my observation that people are generally motivated by either a common good or a common enemy. Of these two, the common enemy is the more apt the motivate people.
In my opinion, we now have a "common enemy" for a significant segment of the populous in our present federal and state government.
There is also the high likelihood that ,as new policies take effect, dissatisfaction may escalate and then We, the People can reach for that which we have lost: the reins to our government.
If that is the case, maybe....just maybe we can call up old Ben, just to say...thank you.

Next, where to start?

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03/08/2017

What a year this past 12 months have been!
A year ago and then some, my literature reviews had convinced me that water in general would become the first necessary commodity to be seriously impacted.
How? By the need for those on our continent who were experiencing dwindling water resources seeking augmented supply from those areas where supply appeared ample at least and in surplus to their immediate needs.
In most part, my previous entries had sought to discuss what I knew to underscore the need for Missouri citizen protection from legislators eager to fatten the state treasury by selling water rights without citizen concent

Then from my last entry to the November elections, new literature was published that challenged my previous notions of supply and demand followed closely by the monsoon type rains in California. This was but an early indication that change was likely to be a new constant.
Then came the Trump Administration and all the federal program cuts!
So where do I (we) now stand?
The quest is the same: protecting the citizen's right to clean water, clean air, sustainable agriculture and soil protection: the very goals that Congress pursued toward the end of the 1960's and the beginning of the 1970's

So I am going back to the very place I had hoped to originally end: the Public Trust.

The Public Trust is not a concept, it is law; doctrine law which is court made law reapplied so many times by various courts that it stands "Stare Decisis", Latin for 'following the precedents" or,"it has been decided". I had even drafted conceptual initiative petition language that I will introduce shortly.
But given the challenges wrought by our new federal government, I feel we need to review all our other options.
My hope is to engender discussion so perhaps a consensus can be achieved for the immediate future.

Finally, I hope to keep each of these posts short enough not to dig deeply into your reading time.
So, tomorrow, Citizen's Rights.

Joe

02/04/2017

Frani Halperin, H2O Radio: NASA. The word evokes space exploration, rockets and missions to faraway planets. But one of the agency’s most intriguing ventures is what it learns by turning its view back at Earth. A perspective that—as it turns out—can tell us a lot about our changing planet.

01/25/2017

Please stay tuned. Due to events the last few days in our nation's Capitol, I am about to switch rails, but still within the original context.
If Nestlie's gets thru to the Oval Office, my worst fears will be realized.
Joe

01/19/2017

The previous page accounts for one potential plan to divert Missouri River water out of the basin to satisfy the needs elsewhere.

Here, I shall list two more potential withdrawal plans. The first is a river that I have never visited but know about by the controversy at the time.

Before the last glacial advance, all rivers in what is now the high plains in the upper Midwest flowed north into what is now Hudson Bay. The last glacial advance covered those valleys and waterways and in retreat the glacial meltwaters created the present Missouri River but retained one old channel which is now the Red River of the North. This River feeds an important agricultural area in southern Canada and is also over utilized. Lacking an international agreement proposal oa couple of decades ago, no Missouri River water has been diverted to Canada. I look for that effort to possibly come around again.

A more recent "plan" has been for the potential benefit of the upper Ogalla Aquifer of Northern Kansas, Nebraska and eastern Colorado. Until recently, this old prairie land was in agricultural production using ground water via center pivot sprinkles. Recently I flew over the region and all I could see were fields reverting to prairie for the lack of water.
The aquifer has been depleted.

The plan the I referred to I suspect was more along the line of wishful thinking, but I would not rule it out: build a diversion facility at the Missouri River, ship the water down along the Front Range of Colorado and then transfer the water to replenish the agricultural production.

In summary, these three proposed withdrawals are the only ones for which I have any knowledge, and each are speculative.
But, behind each proposal is an important industry producing needed food supply for both livestock and human use. Behind each there are human lives needing water and last, but not least, there are environmental needs as well.
The commonality is that in each case, the resource has been over utilized.

Where does The state of Missouri stand?

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01/17/2017

Dang! I just completed the next installment and thought I'd pressed the correct button to publish...but nothing! Guess it is out there in cyber space somewhere. I hope I master this page before I'm through.
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So, the Imperial Valley of California is lush and green, but only in those areas where Colorado River comes in via aqueduct and pipe. In other parts it is arid desert; old lake bottom.

This is the promise of making the desert bloom, a slogan from a century ago as part of the campaign of several states to entice the federal government to stem the spring floods and create reservoirs to supply water to thirsty towns during the dry seasons.

It probably took the Great Depression for the government to begin the effort; the promise of getting America working again. As a Depression kid, I can remember the hype.

During that same period, the federal government tried to create a compact between the many parties at the receiving end of future water supplies. It worked, but only on paper. Remember the old saying,"Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting"? Well, that is about the way it has been, and now the water supply is over appropriated. Now, in dryer times, the reservoirs are at lower levels and
water again is a precious resource again.

However, because of the availability of water in the recent past, cities have grown, agriculture has flourished and the human population is still growing.....beyond capacity.
So, guess what, rather than cut back, thirsty entities are looking for new water sources.

There is a mountain chain between the Colorado River Basin and our backyard River, the Missouri. The Missouri has water to spare...right? So with a bit of engineering and some pumps and pipeline, we can just borrow a little bit of that water and all is well again; the desert will bloom again, thank you.

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