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1989] WATER RIGHTS PROTECTION 8! question of navigability and focuses on the constitutional right of th state's citizens to divert the unappropriated waters of natural stream to beneficial use. The Colorado Supreme Court in People v. Err. mert 210 ruled that the framers of the state's constitution intende thereby to dedicate all the waters of natural streams in the state t appropriation and use. In light thereof, the court specifically rejecte application of the public trust doctrine and concluded that the stream of the state were not navigable in fact at the time Colorado was admit ted to the Union, that the beds and banks of natural streams ar owned by the adjacent landowner, and that questions of access invoh ing use of water over submerged lands for recreation, floatboating, ani fishing should be addressed by the General Assembly, not th Court. 21 1 Colorado's rejection of the public trust doctrine as a water alloca tion mechanism is justified on the basis that the doctrine does not pro vide standards by which the judiciary can determine the allocation 0 quantities of water between competing demands. Academic critics 0 the public trust doctrine have underscored the uncertainty that result from the adoption of that approach to water allocation matters: The injection of a judicial public trust threatens to undermine the delicate consensus among competing water interests that is emerg- ing in many states because the public trust has none of the limita- tions built into other doctrines. It appoints a roving judicial commission to rank uses based on judicially defined values.212 While Colorado does not follow the public trust doctrine as it i! advocated by critics of the state's prior appropriation system, Colo- rado Jaw nevertheless imposes a constitutionally based public duty or state officials to maintain the availability and suitability of the waten of the natural stream for appropriation and use by state citizens. In this regard, Clyde Martz has described the state as a "trustee" for thf purpose of overseeing the use regimen of the stream in order to assist arid states rejected the doctrine of riparian rights forthrightly and completely." United States v. Ger. lach Live Stock Co., 339 U.S. 725, 749 (1950). Themodern "public trust" decisions of the California court are rooted in its riparian heritage derived from common law, the stale constitution. and statf statutes, and not in any special and distinct meaning that the "public trust" embodies for prior appro- priation stales that do not follow California's version of the doctrine. See Littleworth, The Public TruSl \IS. The Public Interest, 19 PAC. L.J. 1201, 1206 (1988). 210. People v. Emmert, 198 Colo. 137,597 P.2d 1025 (1979). 211. For criticism of the court's decision, see Note, People v. Emmert: A Step Backward /01 Recreational Water Use in Colorado, 52 U. CoLO. L. REV. 247 (1981). 212. Tarlock, New Commons in Western Waters, in WATER AND THE AMERICAN WEST, supra nnt,. 14 <It R" <;:.,,' nlrro "",,,1.-1 TIo.. P"J.Ii,. 7'.",~. 1\n~'~"w~ ~_.II.v_.__ OI_L._ ... n __no' ..~.-