Pacific salmon, the signature species of the Pacific Northwest, have declined across their range for well over a century, due to a myriad of human-caused effects on their habitat and the fish themselves. Restoration efforts—some successful, some halting—began earnest in the late 20th...

The public trust doctrine is an ancient doctrine of public property law that governs sovereign stewardship of natural resources. The doctrine both promote public access to trust resources and requires sovereign protection of them for the benefit of the public, including future generations. The...

Professor Blumm traces the evolution of the modern public trust doctrine in the West. He claims the doctrine is best understood by focusing on the remedies courts prescribe for trust violations. Although he sees four distinct categories of remedies in the case law, he asserts that they all...

Oregon’s public trust doctrine has been misunderstood. The doctrine has not been judicially interpreted in over thirty years but was the subject of an Oregon Attorney General’s opinion in 2005. That opinion interpreted the scope of the doctrine to be limited to the beds of tidelands and...

The Columbia River Gorge, site of the nation’s first national scenic area and the only near sea level passage through the Cascade Mountains, possesses the longest continuously occupied site of human habitation in North America. The Gorge has served as a major transportation corridor between...

One of the principal, if unexpected, results of the Supreme Court's 1992 decision in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Commission is the rise of background principles of property and nuisance law as a categorical defense to takings claims. Our writings on the background principles defense have...

This review of David Schorr's book, The Colorado Doctrine: Water Rights, Corporations, and Distributive Justice on the American Frontier, maintains that the book is a therapeutic corrective to the standard history of the origins of western water law as celebration of economic efficiency and...

This article is a brief review of the convoluted history of what are known as the Oregon and California forest lands, federal lands that were once the subject of a 19th century federal railroad grant, then became the focus of widespread land fraud and official corruption, which led to the...