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Environmental & Energy,
Administrative/Regulatory

Jun. 13, 2025

Balancing the basin: Mono Lake's legal legacy and California's water future

National Audubon reframed water rights as conditional privileges, establishing that environmental values are core criteria--not secondary considerations--in California's ongoing water governance.

Roberto Escobar

Roberto "Bobby" Escobar is general counsel, and an environmental and labor and immigration advisor.

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Balancing the basin: Mono Lake's legal legacy and California's water future
Shutterstock

In 1983, the California Supreme Court issued a groundbreaking decision in National Audubon Society v. Superior Court, a case that significantly redefined the relationship between water rights and environmental stewardship. The case, which centered on Los Angeles' diversion of streams feeding Mono Lake, a high desert ecosystem in a state of sharp decline due to decades of water extraction, marked a pivotal moment. The court's adoption of the ancient public trust doctrin...

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