https://waterauditca.org/announcement/2021/water-audit-sues-st-helena-over-alleged-failure-to-uphold-public-trust/

The public trust provides that certain natural resources, including water resources, are held by the state "as trustee of a public trust for the benefit of the people." Audubon, at p. 434.

A public trust trustee "may not approve of destructive activities without giving due regard to the preservation of those [public trust] resources."

Center for Biological Diversity, Inc. v. FPL Group, Inc. (2008) 166 Cal.App.4th 1349, 1370, fn. 19, 83 Cal.Rptr.3d 588.

The beneficiaries of the public trust are the people of California, and it is to them that the trustee owes fiduciary duties.

The trustee deals with the trust property for the beneficiary’s benefit.

No trustee can properly act for only some of the beneficiaries – he/she must represent them all, taking into account any differing interests of the beneficiaries, or he/she cannot properly represent any of them.
Bowles v. Superior Court (1955) 44 C2d 574.

St. Helena has mandated that residents collectively reduce water consumption by 43%, while asking commercial customers to reduce consumption by only 10% (from their 2017-2019 pre-drought averages).

They support this equity gap due to their concern for businesses investments with complete disregard for the investments homeowners have in their properties, which is often a large part of their life savings.
This implies local business investment is "more important" than home investment.

The city of St. Helena (Pelosi and Newsom) is fining residential customers for going over 65 gallons per person per day.

Each of the 2,500 households of St. Helena has been allowed 2,500 gallons of water per month for irrigation.

On average, Spring Mountain Vineyard alone takes as much water as the total landscaping allotment for the residents in the city for nine weeks.

The vineyard pays less than $0.004/gallon penalty for its millions of gallons of excess consumption, while the resident who overwaters her or his landscape by a hundred gallons a day will pay a penalty of $0.334/gallon – nearly 100 times more than SMV penalties for over consumption.