In the western United States, the management of surface water quality and quantity is highly compartmentalized. This compartmentalization among and within state and federal authorities is not inherently objectionable. To the contrary, it likely is necessary. Yet, the degree of compartmentalization appears to have so divided management of this resource that damage has been done to both sides. Opportunities exist for cooperation, coordination, and a more holistic perspective on water management with little or even no change in law.

Editors' Summary: In this Article, William W. Wade evaluates the conceptual measurement of economic impact within the Penn Central test for income-producing properties recently adjudicated in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The discussion considers measurement of the denominator of the takings fraction related to Penn Central's parcel as a whole and whether it differs between permanent and temporary takings.

In a recent essay, David Coursen asks an important and unexamined question: Are environmental justice policies, which seek to avoid disproportionate environmental burdens on minority and poor communities, on a "collision course" with the Equal Protection Clause? In concluding that a potential collision is more illusory than real, Coursen offers a number of reasons why governmental actions to promote environmental justice have not been challenged in court and, even if they were to be, would not be subjected to strict judicial scrutiny.

Editors' Summary

Editors' Summary: Rather than signaling the death of private property rights, as media and the public initially feared, the Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London ushered in an era of increased state and federal protection for private property. In this Article, Daniel H. Cole examines Kelo's repercussions for urban redevelopment. He begins with a description of the case, and then examines the resulting backlash from the media and public opinion, which decried the decision as unduly expanding eminent domain powers.

Editors' Summary

I. Introduction and Overview

Editor's Summary: The exact contours of wetlands jurisdiction has been in dispute ever since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Today, the Court has been given the chance to clarify this area of law as it faces two cases dealing with wetlands jurisdiction. In Rapanos v. United States, the Court must decide whether CWA jurisdiction extends to a series of wetlands that do not abut a navigable-in-fact water. And in Carabell v. U.S.

Editors' Summary: Since the Supreme Court's decision in Rapanos v. United States, courts, practitioners, and scholars have continued to discuss Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's significant nexus test. Under this test, to protect a wetland one must establish that there is a significant nexus between the wetland and a traditional navigable water. In this Article, authors William W. Sapp, Rebekah Robinson, and M. Allison Burdette suggest that the nearer a traditional navigable water is to the wetland, the better the chance of establishing that there is a significant nexus between the two.

In a recent article reviewing the U.S. Supreme Court's environmental decisions over the last 30 years (1969-1999), Professor Richard Lazarus argues that "the Justices have never fully appreciated environmental law as a distinct area of law."¹