River Republic: The Fall and Rise of America’s Rivers | University of Denver Water Law Review at the Sturm College of Law

Living on the Hudson River for the past thirty five years has made me a river lover.  I claim to b a man of the sea but the truth is that I have been sailing on tidal rivers most of my life.  My first non-estuary was the the Lake Creek River northwest of Anchorage which we floated down casting for salmon and trout.  Since then I have followed Save Our Wild Salmon [video below] and its  fight to restore the salmon migration up the Columbia and Snake rivers.  Where 1.5 million salmon once spawned now only 1,200 survive the journey.  SOS is the kind of citizen organization that Daniel McCool credits with much of the river restoration progress we have seen in recent years.  Here on the Hudson the Riverkeeper has provided an often emulated model.  David Schnorr at Environment, Law & History highlights newly published River Republic: The Fall and Rise of America’s Rivers | University of Denver Water Law Review at the Sturm College of Law:

River Republic begins with the stories of the Matlija and Glen Canyon Dams.  These dams, the stories of their construction, and Matlija’s removal serve as a cautionary tale of what will happen to America’s rivers if the U.S. allows what McCool calls “water hubris” to cloud its judgment.   According to McCool, “water hubris” is the combined false beliefs that: (i) water development can occur without costs or tradeoffs, (ii) humans are inherently superior to nature, and (iii) society has a moral right to conquer rivers.  McCool concludes, however, that a new water ethic, a “River Republic,” is slowly replacing “water hubris.”  This new ethic involves treating rivers as common property—cared for and maintained by all for future generations.
In Chapter Two, McCool details the history of the U.S Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) and  explains the Corps’ role in managing our Nation’s rivers.  McCool states that the Corps, like the nation as a whole, is a work in progress.  This chapter focuses for the most part on the early failures of the Corps, such as the environmentally disastrous Kissimmee River channelization in Florida.  Instead of being wholly critical, however, McCool details how the Corps is correcting past mistakes through restoration processes and applauds the cutting-edge engineering that makes such projects possible.  Essentially, McCool argues that the Corps is learning and evolving from its philosophy of conquering rivers to a more modern, balanced approach.

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