Federal Appellate Court Sends Question of Whether Public Trust Doctrine Could Be Used to Reallocate Water Rights to the Nevada Supreme Court

Originally published in Journal of Water, Summer 2018

The United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in Mono County, et al. v. Walker Lake Irrigation District, et al. (“Mono County”) related to the question, “Does the public trust doctrine apply to rights already adjudicated and settled under the doctrine of prior appropriation and, if so, to what extent?” In the case court was n…