October 31 - Happy Halloween!

Happy halloween to everyone!  Hope it's a good one.

In other news, a big snowstorm is supposed to come through here tomorrow, so I should have some interesting pictures to post.  Tune in then!

October 27 - The Volunteers

I may have mentioned at some point that I work in basically a museum.  We try to make as much of our collection searchable as possible.  Unfortunately, our pool of labor is pretty limited.  There is a group of 80 year old volunteers that come in and attempt to help out, but they usually end up giving us more work in the end.  Here:



Ok.  5 unkown caddy strippers.  Seriously this went into one of the volunteer's databases.  Luckily we don't give them access to the real ones.  For the curious, they are supposed to be Candy Stripers which are old timey hospital volunteers.  Anyway, I'm not entirely sure who came up with the idea that these people should have access to a computer, but I'm thankful for the new business model for golf.

October 23, 2011 - Some Pictures!

Time for some new pictures!

Snow!  Good thing it's only on the mountain... not a huge fan.  Hopefully it waits a while before the real snow begins.

Also, what the heck is this?  I couldn't get close enough for a better picture, but this spider was silver.  Ok fine, I refused to get closer.  It looked singularly evil.

The Law of Water Part 2

When we last met, we had barely scratched the surface of the study of water law.  The first method of water allocation that we will discuss is called Riparian rights.  Landowners bordering a waterway are considered riparians.  It is by virtue of having land abutting water that gives them certain rights under the laws of most states in the United States.  Historically, landowners next to water had great advantages over those landowners who had no ready access to water.  It is easy to see why, aside from providing basic necessities such as food and water, access to the water allowed mills, later industrial uses and recreation.

Historically, American jurisdictions subscribed to a "natural flow" rule that gave every riparian owner to have the water in such a state that other users would not diminish the quality or quantity of the flow.  Such theories proved to be impractical however, because any use would diminish the water in some perceptible way.

These days, most jurisdictions espouse a "reasonable use" principle.  This does not mean that the use itself must be reasonable, but the use must be reason in relation to all other uses.  The result of which is a confusing tangle of rights based on land ownership, land size, and proportions.

None the less, riparian rules apply in 29 states and are therefore important.  These states however are generally ones where water is plentiful.  Our next segment will examine prior appropriation, a method used when water is scarce.

The Law of Water - Part 1

After a short break from blogging, I have decided to make a comeback writing about a subject near and dear to my heart, that being water law.  There are few areas of law that are defined by access to a particular resource and especially a resource of such catastrophic importance and variety of needs it fills.  Aside from the obvious quenching of our thirst, it grows our crops, provides a habitat for fish, and satisfies recreational and aesthetic needs.  The list goes on and on.

Water is one of the most plentiful substances on the planet, but it is precious because there never enough water of the right quality, in the right place, at the right time.  Water might be little thought of on the coasts, but in the central United States, the competition for access to water resources is fierce. 

Because of the inequalities in access to water found throughout the United States, American jurisdictions have developed radically different methods of allocating the resources: riparian, prior appropriation and hybrid.

Next time, we will start to go over these different types of law showing just how differently we have dealt with the allocation of water.