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Who Owns the Water? Pt. 1, Groundwater

April 29, 2015

This week we bring you a post from our colleague Richard Whisnant from his new blog: Environmental Law in Context. This is the way the question often comes to me–who owns it?–as a way of asking either who controls water … Read more

Fiscal Sustainability Plans – A Rose by Any Other Name

April 15, 2015

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; – From Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, 1600 This often-quoted phrase by Shakespeare’s Juliet seeks to nullify the fact that Romeo has the surname … Read more

An Ally of the People: Good Governance and Sustainable Finance for Environmental Services

April 2, 2015

In honor of the UN’s World Water Day, a group of us from the Environmental Finance Center attended last month a performance of the play, “An Enemy of the People,” at Playmakers Theater here on UNC’s beautiful campus. It was well done and featured timeless, dramatic themes such as the struggle of one man’s battle to awaken the conscience of the community, the role of a whistleblower, the struggle to protect one’s family, and more. But the play also revolves around environmental finance and governance themes, which got me to wondering: How might this story (essentially set in nineteenth century Norway) fare differently in our own time and place? What different options for protection of public health and promotion of sustainable finance would governments, utilities, and the people have today, especially in regard to safe, clean water?