The public trust doctrine separates private ownership from resources held in common by the public. This legal right, recognized in New York's Constitution, holds that the people own the Hudson River and all citizens have a right to its use, but none can abuse this privilege to degrade its use by others. This democratic value was offset during the Industrial Revolution when courts and legislatures overlooked the public trust and gave more power to industry. A similar erosion of another common law, nuisance law, occurred in the same era. Nuisance law bars private land uses that injure the community or disrupt the rights of others to enjoy their property. In response, millions of Americans demanded greater protection for environmental and community health. As such, these rights were rewritten with greater emphasis in our federal statutory system. They declare no one has the right to pollute public resources and everyone has the right to a clean environment. Only by democratic representation has industry been given permits to pollute so long as the activity benefits society and causes no harm. This created the field of risk assessment and questions what society risks in allocating our common rights to industry.