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<br />_ _.. -.J --'--~l"'..~O
<br />ugh judicial decision making the "means for ensuring that those
<br />do make the decisions do so in a publicly visible manner. ,,207 Sax
<br />inued: "The closer a court can come to thrusting decisionmaking
<br />1 a truly representative body such as by requiring a legislature to
<br />nnine an issue openly and explicitly-the less a court will involve
<br />f in the merits of a controversy."20.
<br />Unlike the California Constitution, which recognizes a right of
<br />gability in the public,>09 the Colorado Constitution is silent on the
<br />
<br />16. Sax, The Public Trust Doctrine in Natural Resource Law: Effective Judicial Intervention, 68
<br />L. REV. 473, 496 (1970). Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, courts have uti-
<br />he public trust doctrine to uphold measures by which states have asserted thejr legislative powers
<br />he development and use of trust lands for public navigation, fishing, and recreation. More re-
<br />, the public trust doctrine hIlS become the mechanism by which courts have sought to hold the
<br />tive branch accountable for decisions that involve the use of public resources for private pur-
<br />The doctrine does not prevent the legislature from mlliking disposition of trust property to less
<br />II the public, but the property continues to be impressed with a public right of use for navigation,
<br />tion, and fishel'Y. In ol'der to exclude or restrict the public, the grant must be accomplished by
<br />it legisla.tive authority, and a particularly egregious OO11version of trust property from public to
<br />~ use will not be allowed or is subject to rescission. Where disposition of trust property properly
<br />.. the state retains its police power. Id. at 477, 488-89.
<br />J7. ld at 502.
<br />)8. Id. at 559.
<br />)9. CAt. CONST. art. X, 94.
<br />ow California has applied. and Colorado has refused to apply, the public trust doctrine for the
<br />ie of determining water allocations and recreational access to water over submerged private lands
<br />udy in the diversity of approach that is entitled to deference under section 101(g). California
<br />) mixed riparian and appropriative system for its wate~ law, and its constitution provides that the
<br />~ht of access by the public to navigable water shall not be denied. See Stevens, stlpra note 205, at
<br />~s the needs of the public changed in California, so did the judicial view of how the trust should
<br />,lied. As growth in the Los Angeles basin mushroomed during the late nineteenth and _early
<br />:th centuries, the courts of that state utilized the publie (rust to allow the city to take as much
<br />is was needed from underground and surface sources for municipal growth,.without compensa-
<br />riparian landowners. Selvin, The Public Trust Doctrine In American UK' and Economic Policy,
<br />920, 1980 WIS. L. REV. 1403, 1431. However, the diversions that subsequently occurred heavily
<br />:I streams and lakes on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada. As a result, the California
<br />ie Court in National Audubon Society v. Superior Court of Alpine County, 33 Car.3d 419, 658
<br />)9, 189 Cal. Rptr. 346, cert. denied, 464 U.S. 977 (1983), counterbalanced the courts' previous
<br />~he public trust, which had justified extensive municipal water appropriation, with a ruling that
<br />st also permits the state to reallocate such appropriative water rights years later, in order to
<br />the riparian values of Mono Lake, a highly prized nalural wonder. The court reasoned tbat,
<br />~e original appropriative allocations were made, state authorities erroneously believed that they
<br />at take fish, wildlife, recreation, and aesthetic values into account when determining how much
<br />~ould be allocated for diversion out of the natural basin streams feeding Mono Lake. In view of
<br />oneons assumption, the state thereFore could reexami~e its prior determination. Id. at 439, 6:58
<br />726-27, 189 Oil. Rptr. at 365.
<br />,us, as the United States Supreme Court observed in 1950, California continues to set itself apan
<br />effort to -reconcile the system of riparian rights with the system of appropriation, while other
<br />
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