Re: Community Options to Resolve Disputes

[Anne Bade <mwbade@netcom.com>]

Dear Bill and other recipients of the carreer Pro list,
 I was interested to see that in the Alameda RAB report on 
possible community responses to deal with cleanup disputes between state 
and Federal authorities, no mention was made of the common law public 
trust doctrine to which most of the Alameda Base is subject because it 
consists of former tidelands which were filled to create the land. This 
property is not held like other state or Federal land. Title is held in 
trust for all the citizens of the state for certain purposes. When it 
ceases to be used for military purposes, many issues of concurrent 
trusteeship are encountered, but I continue to believe that the trust 
provides a very useful framework within which to resolve planning 
disputes in favor of long term public interests.
 For the last year, I have been a member of the peer review panel 
for a second edition of the forthcoming book called Putting the Public 
Trust Doctrine to Work: The Application of the Public Trust Doctrine to 
the Management of Lands, Waters and Living Resources of the Coastal 
States. This book will include sections related to problems of concurrent 
trusteeship on closing military bases. As a matter of fact, one of the 
sessions at next week's meeting of the Coastal States Organization (in 
Massachussetts) will be devoted to precisely this topic. 
 While there has been strong temptation by most local authorities 
to regard the trust as a complex "cloud on title" which must somehow be 
circumvented to convert the bases, I have grown to see it as providing a 
unique 
opportunity to balance public and private interests in open public 
discussions. This dispute between State and Federal authorities may 
indeed be given guidance by referring back to key trust principles. The 
reuse process is now well into its fourth year. It may well be time for 
reuse authorities to acknowledge and actually draw guidance from the 
unique status of title for these lands.
 Sincerely,
 Michael Warburton
 Coordinator
 Public Trust Legal Project