Lawsuit Seeks Legal Rights for the Colorado River

The suit’s backers say if corporations can hold legal protections like people, natural systems should, too.

This article by Matt Smith originally appeared in Seeker, September 26, 2017.

There’s an old saying in the arid American West: Whiskey’s for drinking — water’s for fighting.

Now the perennial fights over the Colorado River, the biggest source of that water, may be taking on a new dimension.

Environmental groups have asked a federal judge in Denver to declare the Colorado an entity with legal rights comparable to people. A win could require governments to consider the rights and interests of the already-overdrawn river before allowing new claims on its water, said attorney Jason Flores-Williams, who filed the suit Monday. MORE…