"It is well settled that issues and legal theories not asserted at the District Court level ordinarily will not be heard on appeal."

And in Air Florida, the DC Circuit emphasized that "we imply no opinion regarding either the applicability of the public trust doctrine to the federal government or the appropriateness of using the doctrine to afford trustees a means for recovering from tortfeasors the cost of restoring public waters to their pre-injury condition."

The court also relied on the DC Circuit's observation that " `[i] n this country the public trust doctrine has developed almost exclusively as a matter of state law.'"Id

The hospitals did not raise these arguments in the District Court, and we do not consider them here.

—noting that "the doctrine has been expanded to protect additional water-related uses such as swimming and similar recreation, aesthetic enjoyment of rivers and lakes, and preservation of flora and fauna indigenous to public trust lands

Thus, state courts considering the public trust doctrine have developed their own frameworks for examining the administration of lands held in public trust.

To be sure, this court has the discretion, in "exceptional circumstances, where injustice might otherwise result," to "consider questions of law that were neither raised below nor passed upon by the District Court."

N] either the Supreme Court nor the federal courts of appeals have expressly decided whether public trust duties apply to the United States. There appear to be only two district court cases which explicitly hold that this common-law rule applies to the federal government as well as to the states

The DC Circuit has had occasion to state, albeit in dictum, that "[i] n this country the public trust doctrine has developed almost exclusively as a matter of state law" and that "the doctrine has functioned as a constraint on states' ability to alienate public trust lands."

"While a complaint should not be dismissed unless the court determines that the allegations do not support relief on any legal theory, the complaint nonetheless must set forth sufficient information to suggest that there is some recognized legal theory upon which relief may be granted."