lucychan's blog

The US Supreme Court keeps on giving and giving. Last week, the Court tossed yet another bone to corporations and dealt another blow to environmentalists. The issue in PPL Montana LLC v Montana was who owns the riverbed beneath 10 hydroelectric dams sitting on three Montana rivers. This may seem like a snoozer, but given the latest grabs for the public’s water by private corporations, it has huge implications for the American people, and especially the people of North Carolina.

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Governor Says No to Corporate Control of NC’s Yadkin River

Last week the US Supreme Court heard arguments from Montana and PPL, a hydroelectric power producer regarding who owns the riverbeds on three Montana Rivers. According to US law, if a river is "navigable" it is owned by the State and should be held in Trust for the people of the State. If the river is not navigable, then it is owned by the federal government for the people of the United States. The case began as parents of school children in Montana got tired of budget cuts to schools, and noted that the State had not been charging millions in riverbed rent for several rivers over the past several decades. They sued the state claiming the State had not been managing its public trust responsibly because it had not been charging rent for the use of the public land.

The Yadkin River is one of our state’s greatest wealth generators. For instance, a thirty-eight mile stretch of the river provides 940 million kilowatt hours of valuable hydro-electricity. Unfortunately, for the past decade, the majority of the wealth generated by the river has flowed out of our state’s economy rather than into it.