A Must Read !! from Rick Duty <'TK><
You guys are a lot closer to our legislators than I am. (I’m a carpetbagger anyway.) So when /if the opportunity arises maybe some of the following points could be useful:
If both states’ wildlife agencies refuse to police the restricted areas, who will? See the Posse Comitatus Act. It places limits on the Army regarding police activities.
The Code of Federal Regulations, regarding the Corps’ water projects: CFR 36, 327. There’s commitments to the public, indemnification of the Corps, and placing responsibility for boat / car / airplane operations on the owner / operator, and more.
Speaking of indemnification, the recent court ruling (this week) threw out the suits against the Corps for the damages caused by the 2010 Nashville floods. Apparently they have a very broad range of legal indemnifications. With that, they are apparently not responsible for the water coming out of the dam.
I have yet to find anything regarding the CoE ownership, responsibilities, and rights beyond the last inch of poured concrete. Where do we find out who “owns” the river downstream, and what the metrics are?
The Water Resources Act has a lot of CoE boundaries in it, most of which seem to center on expense management. I haven’t gotten through it yet, but it may be promising. Take a look.
In a previous life, I had to function as a technical advisor to a very large and prestigious (read incredibly expensive) law firm and to my employer’s very large internal legal staff. (Enough lawyers to swindle-off most of the Bahamas’ land mass.) What I learned about the legal system is – I don’t know squat! What appears to me to be logical, moral, and right, ain’t necessarily in concert with the law. But what I could do, was research statutes, apply some reasonable assessment as to their technical relevance, then offer the legal minds my findings to judge the potential merits of application. As often as not, they'd tell me to blow it out my exhaust pipe, or just laugh. But occasionally, I’d find something that they could twist, mold or spin into a useful argument. (That would get us all excited.) As a group, I’d suggest that we all keep doing that. Find what we think may have application under the law, that fits this set of circumstances, and forward it to the guys with all them Latin words on their diplomas. As of this moment, we may feel like we’ve got the opponent on the deck and the ref ‘s counting. But I’ve been this far before, only to have my ass kicked in round 3. We don’t know how far this will go; but we have good idea of how far it could go. Lets not let up. Lets encourage all who care, to keep writing our legislators, if for no other reasons than expressing our appreciation and keeping the volume on high. If ASA Darcy flames out, and a resolution does have to progress through congress, we may find ourselves writing to legislators in other states, just to keep pushing the issue to a satisfactory conclusion.
--R--
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