If only Williams had stopped there. Alas, she plunges into environmental radicalism, urging that the Great Salt Lake be declared a person and granted rights. She quotes ecologist Ben Abbott to the effect that the lake owns its water:
“If we believe in the Western water doctrine of ‘first in time, first in rights,’ then the water law of prior appropriation says these water rights originally belonged to her as a sovereign body,” said Mr. Abbott.
Please. This is nature-worship mysticism. The Great Salt Lake is a geological feature. It is not a living being. It is not sentient. It cannot own anything.
[Be sure to read it all, but I’ll add this. The purpose of granting ‘personhood’ to natural features is to allow progressives to claim position as their guardian ad litem and control them. The use and regulation of public natural resources belong to the representative governments in their jurisdiction in accordance with the will of the people. This effort is an attempt to usurp that authority. — Ed]
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