Can a river have rights? Everett is finding out
This past election, voters in Everett approved an initiative (24-03) that granted the Snohomish River watershed legally enforceable "rights."
24-03 is part of a broader legal trend called the “rights of nature" movement, an environmental legal theory gaining traction around the world in places like Ecuador, India, and Australia.
Here in the United States, communities in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida have tried giving some bodies of water these extended legal designations -- like the right to exist, right to flow, and right to regenerate and flourish -- which proponents say add a layer…
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