Public trust is a big deal in America, it's what gives us all our public parks, nationally and countywide. Public trust is defined as the government's duty, as a fiduciary, to protect publicly owned resources. Public trust issues are decided in state courts, so the resulting action may vary from state to state. For a government to violate the public trust, the land or resource in question must pass from the public to the private without adequate compensation for what the public will now lose. This is exactly what is happening in this case. Water and the resulting water levels are the endangered resource. The reservoir that physically holds the water is what turns it from public water to private water since no farmer can use what is held upstream. With the provision of the ESA the public (farmers) have the standing to take legal action in case of breach of public trust, which leads to unfavorable economic conditions for them. With this provision and the ruling in the case, the ESA was recognized as a tool for environmentalists and competing natural resource users to challenge the government