Plaintiff backs out of Colorado River lawsuit

The case Colorado River Ecosystem vs. the State of Colorado (see WLJ’s Oct. 2 issue) has been “dismissed with prejudice.” This was the case in which plaintiffs asked the U.S. District Court of Colorado to grant legal “personhood” for the Colorado River. As reported last week, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office filed a motion to dismiss the complaint. Following that motion, the plaintiffs asked for the case to be dismissed. “I do not doubt the personal convictions of those groups and individuals who claimed to speak on behalf of the ecosystem,” said Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman in an official statement. “However, the case itself unacceptably impugned the state’s sovereign authority to administer natural resources for public use, and was well beyond the jurisdiction of the judicial branch of government.”