What is the Public Trust Doctrine?

The public trust doctrine is a safeguard established to ensure continued access to public resources.

“The common law Public Trust Doctrine protects sovereign lands, such as tide and submerged lands and the beds of navigable waterways, for the benefit, use and enjoyment of the public.” - California State Lands Commission

How does the Public Trust Doctrine work?

The doctrine defines the fundamental legal obligation held by the state—and all California’s elected and appointed government officials—to protect certain natural resources for the benefit of all Californians, including future generations.

Natural resources are public resources.

When we think of the natural beauty and abundance of California, images of outdoor activities like fishing, camping, hiking, birdwatching, skiing, hunting or gardening often come to mind. But recreation is not the only use of a natural resource. For example, businesses use natural resources for private profit. Wildlife and ecosystems also depend on water, contributing to its value and importance as a resource. Because public resources belong to all Californians and the natural world doesn’t have a voice, it’s up to the government to keep their use in balance.

Profiting from public resources.

Governments rely on the concept of “beneficial use” when applying public trust principles to the utilization of a resource, thus balancing benefits and harms. Profit is clearly a benefit. For example, humans depend on agriculture and commercial fishing for food—industries that must be profitable in order to serve that need while simultaneously requiring a great deal of fresh water. When profits come at the expense of the health of a shared resource, it's the responsibility of our regulating agencies to enforce the laws based on public trust principles. The goal is to protect the resource from overuse and its subsequent consequences, keeping both the resource and the economy healthy long term.

How does this affect Californians?

Urban ratepayers and rural community members are paying more for and losing access to water. Too much water that should be used to support families, local businesses, and native ecosystems is being diverted to produce livestock feed and nuts sold overseas. Salmon and other important species are on the brink of extinction. For decades, public misperception about water scarcity has allowed mismanagement of water to go unchecked. Our legislatures, commissions, and agencies have abandoned their responsibility to uphold the principles of the public trust doctrine, with dire consequences for us all.

Note: For water in California, the State Water Resources Control Board and the California Department of Fish & Wildlife are the trustees responsible for upholding the public trust.

A historical note:

The development of California’s large-scale water distribution system was a series of contracted infrastructure projects in the 1920s that eventually came up against the environmental movements of the 1970s. With unbuilt dams unable to provide water in the volumes promised in the original contracts, a cycle of chronic shortages ensued. Despite clear and expressed concern, the environment was once again left out of the equation when these contracts were reevaluated in the 1990s.

Are our natural resources at risk?

The short answer is yes. And while it’s easy to blame things we can do little about—climate change and drought—there are many controllable factors at play. Market forces have had a strong influence on policy and policymakers for decades, driving the overexploitation of limited resources.

As climate-related environmental stressors intensify and current usage practices continue, significant ecological losses are inevitable. A devastating domino effect that will disrupt access to other public trust resources including trout and salmon fishing and recreational use of local lakes and rivers.

Once a resource is gone, the State is ultimately relieved of its duty to ensure our access to it. If the State isn’t held accountable now, their incentive to guarantee future generations these resources will disappear completely.

What now?

The good news is that there are laws are in place to protect our water. C-WIN and many other environmental groups are actively pursuing a just and sustainable water use model for all Californians. Protecting California’s water is not out of reach—it’s embedded in the foundations of our institutions.

The Public Trust Doctrine in Action:

The court system has played a measurable role in the shaping of the Public Trust Doctrine. Courts have determined that the expectations of the Public Trust Doctrine encompass the conservation of the natural state of sovereign lands so they can provide ecological units for scientific study, open space for recreation, and ecosystem services such as food and wildlife habitat.

Common Law vs. Civil Law

While civil law takes the form of legal codes, common law comes from uncodified case law that arises as a result of judicial decisions. Common laws recognize prior court decisions as legally binding precedents.

PTD Court Cases

Bring Back the Kern et al. v. City of Bakersfield

The city of Bakersfield has allowed diversions to dry up the Kern River, harming its fish populations: a direct violation of their PTD duty and water code 5973. This case is currently developing, and recently the judge granted a preliminary injunction preventing water diversions to ensure the continued flow for the health of the river’s fish populations.

SWRCB Pattern and Practice Public Trust Lawsuit

In August 2015, C-WIN challenged the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) for ignoring state law. During the drought, salinity standards were relaxed to enable increased pumping of Delta water to corporate agricultural interests in the San Joaquin Valley. After four years of successfully addressing procedural issues, we went to trial in November 2019. This was the first public trust doctrine case that encompassed an entire estuary. The California Delta estuary, with its 26 major rivers and creeks, and three runs of endangered salmon, is the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas and the source of consumptive fresh water for over half of California’s population. We believe this to be an historic and precedent-setting case.

Environmental Law Foundation et al. v. State Water Resources Control Board et al.

The decision by California’s appeals court made it very clear that whenever feasible the health and safety of ecosystems and the species that inhabit them should be preserved. This means groundwater resources must be managed to ensure the protection of groundwater-dependent habitats, in this case those pertaining specifically to the Scott River—home to native populations of steelhead and salmon.

Butte County D.A. v. Department of Water Resources (DWR)

Case alleges that DWR (which has been responsible for operations and use of the Oroville Dam since its construction in 1961) violated section 5650 in February 2017, when the agency released water from Lake Oroville down the dam’s control spillway; this caused a large area of the concrete spillway and nearby hillside to erode, endangering local wildlife. Although the courts failed to hold DWR accountable after years of litigation, it was one of the initial cases in California that attempted to apply environmental science to the way contractors operate and maintain California’s developed water.

 2008 Environmental Bay Delta Case

The California Supreme Court determined that the environmental consequences of continued over-appropriation of our water required mitigation for the sake of the Delta ecosystem’s health. This decision acknowledged that cutbacks on water exports would be needed to abide by endangered species laws.

Mono Lake Case (National Audubon Society v. Superior Court)

A Public Trust Analysis of Mono Lake determined the economic benefits of preserving the public trust of instream flows—the non-market values—outweighed the cost to Los Angeles of finding a water source alternative to Mono Lake (i.e., a market value) by a factor of 50. This case established that the State of California has an affirmative duty to account for and protect the public trust doctrine whenever feasible.

Civil laws supporting the PTD