If we invoke the ancient European idea of the &quot;public trust doctrine&quot; to bolster the justness of the argument that Vinod Khosla should create a path on his private land for the public use -- then why can&#x27;t California invoke that same reasoning to overturn the antequated water ownership laws that give private, transferrable ownership of ground resources (including water) for large landowners who control a large portion of the state&#x27;s water sources?<p>The attitude about California&#x27;s ground water is, &quot;Hey, they own the water based on the laws on the books, what can you do?&quot;  Much of the public would rather they not use all that water on almonds and alfalfa and whatnot, just to export elsewhere.  Why can&#x27;t the rest of the country grow that stuff?  How can someone exclusively own the groundwater like that??<p>Whatever law that applies to Vinod Khosla should apply to those large water-wasting water-owners.<p>(And it follows that however dastardly Vinod Khosla may seem, the large water-owners in California are irrevocably screwing over California&#x27;s future generations&#x27; water resources, and are thus in my book, much more worthy of scorn and &quot;public trust doctrine&quot; action.)