A 17-year-old environmental activist from the East Mountains near Albuquerque believes Gov. Susana Martinez and the state are failing to protect air quality for the public, and she's hoping a Santa Fe District Court judge will let her pursue litigation.

The state wants Akilah Sanders-Reed's atmospheric trust case, filed in May 2011, dismissed.

Santa Fe District Court Judge Sarah Singleton will hear arguments Thursday by the New Mexico Attorney General's Office and an attorney for the teenager over whether the state court has jurisdiction to proceed with the case.

Sanders-Reed, an Albuquerque Academy student, believes the state has a duty to protect air quality from greenhouse-gas emissions under a common law public trust doctrine, said her attorney, Samantha Ruscavege-Barz. Greenhouse-gas emissions are linked to global climate change, which, the teen argues, is already reducing snowpack in New Mexico mountains and making droughts worse.

The public trust doctrine was recognized by Romans, was included in England's Magna Carta and later became part of common law in the United States.

Sanders-Reed is among the youth plaintiffs who have filed similar public trust lawsuits in 49 states, the District of Columbia and federal court, seeking protection of the atmosphere as a way of forcing action on addressing climate change. The campaign was launched by iMatter Youth Council, a coalition of more than two dozen environmental organizations joining to organize youth internationally around environmental and social issues. Sanders-Reed is part of the iMatter Youth Council.

The state will argue no public trust doctrine is recognized in New Mexico, and therefore the case can't proceed, said Phil Sisneros, a spokesman for the attorney general.

Sanders-Reed, her father, John Sanders-Reed, and the Santa Fe-based nonprofit WildEarth Guardians filed the complaint against Gov. Susana Martinez and the state, claiming they had failed to protect air quality, a public resource. Ruscavege-Barz is a staff attorney at WildEarth Guardians.

"The atmosphere, essential to human existence, is an asset that belongs to all people," says the complaint. The governor and the state "have a fiduciary duty to protect the atmosphere from the effects of climate change and to hold this vital natural resource in trust for present and future generations of New Mexicans."

Ruscavege-Barz will argue the public trust doctrine requires the state to protect the atmosphere and consider how action, or inaction, might impair those resources. She said New Mexico law already recognizes water as a resource held in trust by the state for the public.

Ruscavege-Barz said California and Washington state both have extensive public trust doctrine laws. A Nevada court recognized the public trust doctrine for the first time last June.

"New Mexico courts have never formally recognized the existence of the public trust doctrine, but then they haven't been asked to either," she said.

If the court agrees to proceed with the case, it will be a long haul to a decision. But Sanders-Reed believes in the Theodore Roethke quote on her Facebook page: "What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible."

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.

IF YOU GO

What: Hearing on the atmospheric trust litigation brought by teenager Akilah Sanders-Reed

When: 9 a.m. Thursday

Where: 1st Judicial District, Courtroom 250, 100 Catron St., Santa Fe