This article is reprinted from National Review with the permission of the author.

More than 30 U.S. cities have adopted nature rights ordinances, mostly to prevent fracking. And now in the recent election, 57 percent of voters in Everett, Wash., granted rights to a geological feature, specifically, the Snohomish River watershed. From the initiative:

The Snohomish River Watershed possesses the rights to exist, regenerate, and flourish, which shall include the right to naturally recharge, the right to naturally flow, the right to water quality necessary to provide habitat for native plants and animals, the right to provide clean water, and the right to restoration. The Snohomish River Watershed shall also have the right to be free from activities or projects which violate those rights.

This is anti-enterprise — and anti-human — since it waters down (pardon the pun) the crucial legal principle of rights to a ridiculous degree. Indeed, with a river granted rights, we de-dignify rights into a concept that thwarts, rather than protects, human freedom.

And think about the potential scope of the activities from which the river now has a “right” to be free — the irrationality of those words made them hard to type. Can floods be controlled if the river has the right to “naturally flow”? Perhaps not. The term “regenerate” in the ordinance “shall mean that the Snohomish River Watershed has the capacity to regain its historically basic functions following a natural or manmade interference with those functions.”

Similarly, does the “right to restoration” mean that existing developments that supposedly violate the “rights” of the river could be subjected to lawfare, meaning is it now open season on farmers, developers, and enterprises that environmental extremists oppose? Nothing in the ordinance would prevent it.

Indeed future, and perhaps existing human uses of the river could be subjected to litigation since anyone in Everett, a city north of Seattle, has legal standing enforce the river’s rights:

The Snohomish River Watershed may enforce or defend the rights recognized by this Ordinance through an action brought by any person with legal standing in the City of Everett in the name of the Snohomish River Watershed as the real party in interest, in any court of competent jurisdiction.

This could be a money tree for environmental lawyers and “experts”:

A prevailing plaintiff, in an enforcement action, shall be entitled to recover all costs of litigation, including, without limitation, expert and attorney’s fees.

And get this:

The rights of the Snohomish River Watershed secured within this Ordinance shall not be interpreted to confer liabilities, duties, obligations, or responsibilities on the Snohomish River Watershed.

No suing the river for destroying your home! Good grief.

And scientific certainty about potential damage to the river need not even be demonstrated:

Where probable violations of the rights protected in this Ordinance are shown to exist, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for denying or postponing enforcement or defense of these rights.

I understand that this is a city ordinance that will have limited impact. But nature rights activists plan for this approach to eventually apply at local, state, national, and, eventually, international levels of governance. Indeed, in Panama and Ecuador, copper mines were stopped because they violated the rights of nature that those countries adopted into law.

Can this ordinance be overturned by the state? Sure. When voters in Orange County, Fla., granted rights to all waterways and Toledo, Ohio, voters granted rights to Lake Erie, the state legislatures passed laws in those states preempting the ordinances. But this is Washington, which is cobalt blue. I doubt the legislature will act because nature rights is fast becoming part of the progressive policy infrastructure. 

Again. It is time for opponents to take nature rights as seriously as supporters do. There needs to be a vocal campaign against nature rights to educate people why this is such a bad idea. And states and the federal government should preempt now, not after these policies are enacted. Otherwise, Everetts will continue to multiply, and human thriving will be suffocated the way a boa constrictor kills its prey.