Should Lake Erie have legal rights like a person?

TOLEDO — The failing health of Lake Erie, the world’s 11th-largest lake, is at the heart of one of the most unusual questions to appear on an American ballot: Should a body of water be given rights normally associated with those granted to a person?

Voters in Toledo will be asked this week to decide whether Lake Erie, which supports the economies of four states, one Canadian province and the cities of Toledo, Cleveland and Buffalo, New York, has the legal right “to exist, flourish and naturally evolve.”

The peculiar ballot question comes amid a string of environmental calamities at the lake — poisonous algae blooms in summer, runoff containing fertilizer and animal manure, and a constant threat from invasive fish. But this special election is not merely symbolic. It is legal strategy: If the lake gets legal rights, the theory goes, people can sue polluters on its behalf.

https://www.dispatch.com/news/20190224/should-lake-erie-get-legal-rights-like-person-toledo-voters-to-decide