tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723709701684173708.post4079688703277486834..comments2024-03-18T07:16:20.270-04:00Comments on The Gossips of Rivertown: "I've Got to Admit It's Getting Better": Part 2Carole Osterinkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16010623982526286408noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723709701684173708.post-66469871580566013552014-04-26T11:00:51.380-04:002014-04-26T11:00:51.380-04:00National Organization for Rivers:
After the Americ...National Organization for Rivers:<br />After the American Revolution, state and federal courts upheld public fishing rights, as well as state authority to regulate fishing to conserve fisheries. In Arnold v. Mundy, the owner of land next to a river claimed private ownership of the fishing rights, but the court said this amounted to claiming that “Magna Charta was a farce.” The court relied on “the law of nature, which is the only true foundation of all the social rights,” and said Magna Charta was “nothing but a restoration of common rights,” then held that the state “cannot make a direct and absolute grant of the waters of the state, divesting all the citizens of their common right,” adding that such a grant “never could be long borne by a free people.” In Martin v. Waddell, the U.S. Supreme Court held that in America, as in England, the public has a “liberty of fishing in the sea, or creeks, or arms thereof, as a public common of piscary.” (Fishing place.) In subsequent cases, the U.S. Supreme Court held that states hold surface waters “in trust” for the people, so that the people will have “liberty of fishing therein freed from the obstruction or interferences of private parties.” It held that a state cannot “abdicate its trust over property in which the whole people are interested,” and that rivers “shall not be disposed of piecemeal to individuals as private property.” These principles are now known as the Public Trust Doctrine. Arnold v. Mundy, 6 N.J.L. 1 (1821). Martin v. Waddell, 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 367, 10 L.ed 997 (1842). Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Illinois, 146 U.S. 387, 36 L.ed 1018 (1892). Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 38 L.ed 331 (1894).<br />"never could be long borne by a free people.” <br /><br />1Riparian1Riparianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17248602693560230557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723709701684173708.post-79389330146347482142014-04-25T08:09:37.898-04:002014-04-25T08:09:37.898-04:00In regard to "most of the bay [being] present...In regard to "most of the bay [being] presently unusable," we may be fooling ourselves that our own feelings are much finer today. We continue to look at the bays in terms of human use, although now it's recreational use.<br /><br />In fact our two wetlands, the North and South Bays, are exceedingly rare in the overall Hudson River system. They're surviving remnants of the river that preceded our arrival, and within them are the remnants of flora and fauna that have miraculously survived our colossal selfishness.<br /><br />The best thing to do for these systems is to leave them alone. Do not "develop" them for any further human uses than they already endure.<br /><br />Our fine feelings might provoke us to ask instead why we dump the 5th Ward's sewer runoff directly into the North Bay? <br /><br />In 50 years will people look back to 2014 and wonder at our own ignorance and insensitivity when faced with the city's identical plan to use the South Bay as a catch basin for unfiltered sewer runoff? <br /><br />We're even contemplating changing the zoning in a way which will greatly increase the city's runoff! Are we really smarter and more sensitive today than we were in 1965, or is that just a story we tell ourselves?<br /><br />Consistent with the claim in the 1965 document, whenever Furgary's foes were able to prompt health authorities to investigate charges of unsanitary conditions at the camp, the charges turned out to be unfounded. <br /><br />Simultaneous with this criticism of Furgary, what was typical then and now was to overlook the central irony of planning to build the Waste Water Treatment Plant on lands owned by the State of New York. <br /><br />If anyone had a claim to occupy lands in the North Bay, by 1965 Furgary's was the older one by nearly a century. What the state Supreme Court decided in 2012 was that all parties in the North Bay were squatters, including the city.<br /><br />(Traditionally and by law, hunting and fishing are "uses" of a special kind. If these activities were wholly unregulated when Furgary was formed in the 19th century, today their survival is central to the conservation effort in America.) <br />unheimlichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00204285837938988668noreply@blogger.com