Federal judge rules boating on rivers illegal.
 

That constitutional phrase about navigable waterways has a tremendous case history, I'll bet. It certainly has in Louisiana. I think it doesn't take a very good botanist to predict that this case is going to the SC.

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wtf... as long as your out of the way of commercial craft its all good...do lakes also qualify as navigatable... this is some serious stuff...

For purposes of legal definition, the SC has upheld the right of the Fed to exercise jurisdictional control over waterways and their tributaries and associated wetlands. This judge's ruling narrowed the previous distinction significantly.

A recent SC case involving the definition occurred near Chicago (IIRC). The USACE fined a landowner for loss of wetlands function on a piece of property that, through quarrying, had become a speckled landscape of small ponds and wetlands. Defendant claimed that the wetlands were not connected to navigational waters and therefore, didn't fall under USACE control. He won the case, which modestly narrowed fed control over wetlands.

It looks to me like this judge is making another run at restricting federal power. This should be interesting.

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Just another junk ruling.

Don't worry it will be fixed. The boating industry is a mutli billion dollar industry.

It is a strange rulling, in navigable rivers and lakes the property owners only owned to the water line. The feds controled the rest, I suspect the gov will deal with this.

The title of this thread is a bit sensationalist and is getting paddler panties in a wad all over the 'net. The Judge ruled very narrowly that the anglers couldn't fish on Walker Cottonwood's Farm property above the low water mark. If you read the case technically, you could drive drag boats, sail boats, jet skis, pontoons, canoes or kayaks wherever you wanted, you just couldn't fish there.


I'll post the case and some articles tomorrow--when I get back from hunting on the Mississippi River.

Interesting. After having read some case's in school it seems that usualy the media cherry picks a few points to grab readers. Usualy if one actualy reads the case results they show a different story.

It depends on state law, if you own waterfront property you may own the bottom of the lake. Because of riparian laws boats may pass over the lake bottom without trespass, Michigan state law allows anchorage, fishing on that lake bottom.

Same in Colorado I believe. Property owners own the land under the river but not the water. Can't stand on the bottom to fish, but you can fish from a boat. Problems arise when people try to portage rapids.
I haven't read the original ruling so I'll look forward to that posting.

In CT the test is if its navigable. Take the Thames for example, the property owners only own to the high water mark. You can fish boat whatever the rest. Now a non navigable river they own to the center if not otherwise marked. So they can and sometimes do tell you to leave.

I am not 100% sure how it works with lakes, I think its about the same. There are private lakes though, but I think that has more to do with acess.

In Michigan if the river is navigable, the term navigable is wishy washy at best because the only test is if a 16 ft log can float unimpeded you can fish the river if the river or stream is not designated by the DNR as public forget about it.

Guess how they determine that!

Answer:

If the river is stocked by the Michigan DNR, the river and it tribuaries can be fished via waders, boat but you can't use the shoreline.

My memory is not entirely reliable but I believe the situation was clarified in CO a few years ago when an armed landowner called the sheriff to arrest some rafters on the Taylor River, a tributary of the Gunnison. Homeowner claimed it was a non-navigable river. I'm pretty sure the outcome was in favor of the boaters.

There are many thousands of miles of navigation canals cut through the outter Mississippi-Atchafalaya distributary system. Many are blind canals called 'keyhole' canals. The end expands into a large rectangle making room for a drill rig and barge to maneuver. There rarely have a current, other than associated with the tidal flux. Others, usually cut from bayous, may flow with continuous current. there have been numerous court cases concerning the definition of public vs private access to the canals. I believe (though I'm not certain) that the settling point is whether there is a current aside from (or addition to) tidal flux. It's a mess.

Navigability is one issue and another that is usually far more contentious is the definition of a jurisdictional wetland. That knucklehead, Dan Quayle, tried to redefine 'wetland' so that it wouldn't depend on scientific determinants. That was the lawyer's full-employment act of 1989 (I think that's the date, anyway).

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