Transcript

David Getches: How do our doctrines serve the past, and how can they serve the present?

I think what we need to do is to be willing to look at how our doctrines serve the past and how they can serve the present. We've suggested that the prior appropriation doctrine is what allocates most water in the West. Some people would like to throw it all out together. I guess I take a little different view of that -- I think it is here to stay. We have to learn how to work with it. It is part of the tradition and the basis for property rights. On the other hand, if it doesn't show its flexibility, if it doesn't show its ability to change, it will be challenged as the fundamental doctrine. The states have these instream flow systems, and there is enormous political pressure to make them work. The states also have a beneficial use doctrine, yet we continue to have waste of water. I think all the elements are there: we need to make the laws work better, [we need] public participation [and] respect for the public interest. Some of those elements have taken a back seat to the simple "first in time, first in right" property rights part of the doctrine. We have to look at it in a much larger context -- not let go of the tradition but find the flexibility in it.

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