A RIVER RECLAIMING: APPLICATION OF INVERSE CONDEMNATION TO THE SAN JOAQUIN RIVER RESTORATION

摘要

It went from a roar to a whimper. The mighty San Joaquin that once flowed free from the Sierra to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was reduced to a mere trickle by the building of the Friant Dam.1 The farmers and land owners along the now dry riverbedprotested, but the benefits of newly permitted agriculture and a promise of water from other sources quelled the conflict.2 For over fifty years the land remained dry and the soil beneath and around the river bed now hosts productive row and tree crops.3 But an effort to reintroduce the locally extinct salmon into the historic waterway brings back the threat of renewed flows.4 For those that had once demanded the water's return, the San Joaquin River Restoration Program ("SJRRP") offers a gift they would prefer to live without.5