I wonder how long some of these water rights will survive. It seems that the Public Trust Doctrine may be used to cancel some (all?) long-standing rights. My

I wonder how long some of these water rights will survive. It seems that the Public Trust Doctrine may be used to cancel some (all?) long-standing rights. My thought is that water rights are a way to allocate water that doesn't yet exist in the Colorado River. Exercising these rights is a present and future danger to the public interest. It's not like mineral rights over "stuff" that has been in the ground for millions of years. > courts have used the public trust doctrine to minimize preexisting private property rights, as was done by the California Supreme Court in the famous Mono Lake case. In Mono Lake, the City of Los Angeles had secured water rights in Mono Lake's nonnavigable feeder streams under the state's prior appropriation water rights allocation system. However, the city's water diversions were adversely affecting the ecological integrity of this second largest California lake, revered as a “scenic and ecological treasure of national significance.” Faced with a classic confrontation between public and private water rights, the court held for the public, saying the public trust doctrine prevented any party from acquiring vested property rights to appropriate water in a manner injurious to the interests protected by the trust. http://www.velj.org/illinois-central-and-the-public-trust-doctrine-in-state-law.html http://www.velj.org/illinois-central-and-the-public-trust-do...