Water rights V: Public rights
(Continuing the series on water rights :) Whatever property regime applies to water, the public often retains certain rights in the resource. Thus, for instance, in American law, though a river's water may be owned by riparian landowners or appropriators, the federal government retains a "navigation servitude" in the water with which private owners (and states) cannot interfere ( Trelease, 1965 ). Joseph Sax Recent decades have seen much discussion of the "public trust doctrine", rules that allow public interests, especially environmental ones, to trump the normal property rules in water. Though the doctrine has its roots in the traditional civil and common law, particularly with regard to tidelands ( Selvin, 1980 ), its modern form was first articulated by Joseph Sax in a highly influential article (1970) , in which he argued that the historical doctrine should be developed to encourage courts to subject actions that harm the environment to strict scrutiny. In ...