Environmental Law

From GeoClasses

Environmental Law

Resource Law: Water

Surface Water

boating over 100 years ago on the Hooghly River, a tributary of the River Ganges in India

• no one can own a stream, river, lake - but people can have rights to use the water
• 2 approaches: proximity vs. "first come, first served"

Riparian Doctrine

Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River

• landowners adjacent to the stream/river/lake have equal rights to the use of that water
• usually specified: water taken out must be returned in the same amount and quality
• implicit: no one landowner can interfere with another's
  • basis of the law in the eastern US where water is plentiful

• California Water Wars

Prior Appropriation

• whoever was historically first to be granted water rights can retain that right provided they do not discontinue use
• one does not need to own any land along the shore
• later users are given less rights
• future use (as families or companies grow larger) is proportional to the original distribution of rights (user A gets 50%, user B gets 25% etc.)
  • basis for law in the western US where surface water is in short supply
  • ideally - was designed to discourage excessive settlement and development; in reality - since failure to use that water for a period of time causes loss of water rights, it has promoted waste of water resources in an environment that cannot afford it

• From owner of photo G. Thomas: "Owens Valley, California, and the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada mountains, looking southwest from the Inyo Mountains near Harkless Flat. Tinemaha Reservoir is visible in the near distance. There is an old cabin and an old mining trail owned and still claimed. Young men named Ron B.and Paul D. camp commonly here and offer lots of information on the place this picture is taken."

Groundwater Law

cartoon of groundwater flow in the Great Lakes region

• established before people understood the hydrologic cycle and the link between surface water and groundwater

"Rule of Capture"

cartoon of change in groundwater flow with pumping

map of groundwater divides and water table levels before and after development in the Chicago region

• English rule
• landowner has rights to anything he can extract from the ground on his own property
  • but groundwater moves laterally - one landowner may draw so much that the next landowner does not have any

"Rule of Reasonable Use"

average water budget for Lake Michigan

• American rule
• groundwater use must be of beneficial use to the land above
  • but what consitutes "reasonable use"?
  • how do you monitor someone's use/removal when you can't see the resource?

Resource Law: Minerals and Fuels

Mineral Rights

miners waiting to file land claims in the Klondike Gold Rush, 1880s

coal miners in Hazleton, Pennsylvania 1900

reclaimed mine sign in ND

• 1872 Mining Law
  • mineral rights and land titles granted to anyone who located a mineral deposit on federal land
  • land bought <$5/acre - a price set in the legislation
  • proof of location of deposit not required
  • no royalties required to be paid on any profit made
  • mining procedures, reclamation, and restoration were not regulated

• Mineral Leasing Acts of 1920 and 1947
  • certain resources (oil, gas, coal, potash, phosphates) were singled out and more regulated
  • extraction rights leased from the government for finite period of time
  • royalties on profit had to be paid
  • but still no regulation of mining procedures, reclamation

• 1995: reform proposals in a bill passed by House of Representatives
  • other resources controlled more strictly
  • land prices closer to market value
  • mining reclamation would be required
  • BUT as of 2000 has not been passed through Congress and made into law

• Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977
  • applies only to coal mining
  • companies required to restore land to originally quality (ex: farmland productivity, topography, groundwater recharge)
  • has lead to some tension - state laws are frequently more stingent than federal laws so more economical for companies to develop mines on federal lands within that state - the state and often the federal govt. do not receive royalties - but the state is stuck with the cost of the air and water pollution

International Resource Laws

Law of the Sea and Exclusive Economic Zones

law of the sea and exclusive economic zone

• territorial waters defined - 12 miles out from shore
• Exclusive Economic Zone - up to 200 miles from shore
  • for some areas that is continental shelf, others that becomes deep sea
  • within that zone, a country has rights to any resource (oil and gas, minerals)

Antarctica

Antarctic claims

• disputes over land in Antarctica led to an International Treaty assigning territorial claims
  • agreed the whole continent should remain open
  • military activity, weapons testing is banned
  • every effort should be made to preserve the flora and fauna

• CRAMRA - Convention for the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resources Activities
  • no prospecting, exploration, development without full environmental impact assessment
  • use must be unanimously agreed upon
  • in US there was so much opposition that a federal law was passed (Antarctic Protection Act of 1990) banning any such activity by US citizens or companies
  • hopefully this will never be allowed, considering the impact any melting/destruction of the ice pack would have globally

Pollution

Water Pollution

Refuse Act of 1899

• should have prevented all water pollution in US
• banned any dumping or discharge of refuse into any navigable water body
  • was not enforced

Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1956

• focused on municipal sewage treatment plants

Water Quality Improvement Act 1970 and Clean Water Act 1977

cleanup after an oil spill

• included oil spills and chemical pollutants, both point and nonpoint source
• Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for creating water quality criteria and monitoring compliance
  • funding for such initiatives has lapsed since 1991

Air Pollution

Clean Air Act of 1963

traffic on I-80 in Berkeley, CA

• first enacted air pollution control efforts
• amended in 1965 to include motor vehicle emissions
• reauthorized in 1990
  • regulated CFCs (harmful to ozone layer), industrial emissions, vehicle emissions, O3 and CO in lower atmosphere, SO2 from power plants

Waste Disposal

Solid Waste Disposal Act of 1965

Puente Hills Landfill, the largest landfill in the US (Los Angeles County)

• originally aimed at municipal solid wastes (landfills)
• has shifted to hazardous and toxic wastes

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976

• hazardous wastes are defined
• efforts made to recover valuable materials from waste (recycling)
• monitored by Environmental Protection Agency
• amendments in 1984 made regulations more strict for smaller waste producers
  • closed loopholes such as: before, a user could be "delisted" by proving he did not have any more of the chemical he was caught with; now he can only be "delisted" if he has NO hazardous chemicals at all

Superfund program

Drilling operations to verify the status of the Bruin Lagoon hazardous waste cleanup. This site was contaminated with heavy metals, sulfuric acid and crude oil waste. It was stabilized under Superfund; this picture is of engineers drilling out a soil sample to check its condition.

• recognizing past failures at waste management