public trust doctrine

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public trust doctrine

n. the principle that the government holds title to submerged land under navigable waters in trust for the benefit of the public. Thus, any use or sale of the land under water must be in the public interest. Nevertheless, there has been a great deal of use for offshore oil drilling, for landfill, and marine shoreline development, in which protection of the public interest has been dubious at best.

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Appellants, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) along with its commissioner of natural resources, a city, and a town, appealed from the District Court's grant of declaratory and injunctive relief to respondents lake restoration non-profit and homeowners' association on respondents' claims that the DNR violated Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA) and the common-law public-trust doctrine by making water-appropriation decisions that lowered the water level of White Bear Lake.

116B.03 applies; and (2) in Minnesota, the common-law public-trust doctrine applies to navigable waters and does not apply to groundwater withdrawals.

Court of Appeals Digest: April 24, 2019

It also alleges that the government has violated the youths' constitutional rights to due process and equal protection, by endangering them and future generations via actions that cause dangerous carbon dioxide concentrations in the air; and violated a federal public-trust doctrine that directs the government to safeguard natural resources for current and future residents.

New climate lawsuit filed

They also discuss the anticommons and the increasing demand for water in industrial and municipal uses and the lower value of water; the public-trust doctrine and its threat to property rights needed for the functioning of water markets; how water-quality trading has a limited number of real market-like features; the economic implications of using ad valorem taxes assessed on real property in lieu of direct user charges to pay for water development and allocation; the decommissioning of dams; the Delta of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Rivers, water allocation, and the political feasibility of alternative solutions; Los Angeles water sources; and water rights in California.

Aquanomics; water markets and the environment

Nascimento.(168) The court explained that Nascimento appears to hold that "all land created by the placing of fill below the mean high tide remains subject to the public-trust doctrine."(169)

Untwisting the common law: public trust and the Massachusetts colonial ordinance

That led to a discussion of English common law, the public-trust doctrine, and management of public land for multiple use and sustained yield, modified by the RPA, NFMA, ESA, FLPMA, and NEPA.