Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1963
Publication Information
39 Indiana Law Journal 69 (1963)
Abstract
Given the possibility that Indiana may be critically short of water before this century ends, the inquiring purpose of this paper is whether the courts of that state are looking less at the future need for water than at the past abundance of it.
Surface water in Indiana has always been regarded as a nuisance, even in the unusually dry growing season of 1963. "A river," Justice Holmes once said, "is more than an amenity. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it." In a state that faces a dearth of water in its future and remembers with too little concern the abundant water of its past, this should be true of rivers under the ground and rivers without banks, as much as it has become true of the Wabash, the St. Joseph, and the Ohio. Thus the first part of this paper has been devoted to summarizing the scientific classifications of surface water and the climatic factors which produce it; the next to tracing the development of rules of law on using, disposing of, and guarding against surface water flow, and the last part to outlining the more prominent facts involved in meeting future water demands in Indiana and evaluating whether the present rules of law accommodate the governmental and private efforts required to meet the demands.
Recommended Citation
Thomas L. Shaffer,
Surface Water in Indiana,
39 Indiana Law Journal 69 (1963).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/law_faculty_scholarship/639
