U.s. Supreme Court To Decide Who Owns Land Beneath Rivers

[Bill Anderson]

The United States Supreme Court is going to rule in a Montana case whether or not the state owns the land beneath 10 dams. The state of Montana contends that IT owns the land that the privately owned dams are sitting on and it is owed millions of dollars in back rent. This case could define what is and is not a navigable waterway and could have bearing all over the country including streams here in the Ozarks.The case will even use testimony from records found in the diaries of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806. This case should be worth following, because it could decide once and for all who has the right to control streams which up to now have been considered private property.

[Feathers and Fins]

oh now this is interesting keep us informed please

[Wayne SW/MO]

I'm not sure how it will apply to streams. Dams generally extend well beyond the high water mark, as do the inpoundments. It would seem that unless they specifically refer to the portion of the dam in the original stream bed it will be another wash.

I suppose we will have to wait and see.

[jdmidwest]

Currently, in MO, a landowner pays taxes on the stream bed also if it runs thru a property. If the ruling goes to the state or public ownership, I wonder if there will be a tax break?

[Wayne SW/MO]

How do you figure JD? Don,t deeds say more or less acerage and avoid any mention of specific features?

[jdmidwest]

You could look at it that way, more or less. My deed states the same, more or less. But it includes the acreage that is under the water of the land that we own that is under the stream that flows thru our property on one farm and we are taxed on the acreage, not less. Another property, where the stream changed course in the 160 years it has been in the family, the water no longer flows thru it but over on the other guy, is taxed and deeded the same acreage as it was back in the 1850's when it was originally purchased by great great grandpappy and the river went over the property at that time.

But the more or less rule does come into play. One farm lost a few acres a few years back when a surveyor mapped out an adjoining property that was deeded to the center of the creek bed. The surveyor went by the current channel, not the original channel in the deed which was now a slough. We lost the whole portion of land from where it flowed at the time of the deed to its present course, about 10k worth of value.

In reading an article in STL Today, the Supreme Court argument is more about State and Federal ownership of the stream beds, not private ownership. And it is in Montana, not MO. In my case, the lands we own are deeded to us from the State.

[Gilly]

After this past summer's flooding on the Missouri River and watching the politics play out, I don't have a whole lot of respect for Montana government. They pretty much told everyone else below them on the Missouri to kiss their rear. Having been directly affected by the flood my sense of compassion and humor for all things Montana & Corp. of Engineers is on the negative side of the ledger.

[Outside Bend]

The state of Montana has very little to do with the operation of those dams. They can petition the operators for more (or less), water, but they're not the folks with the finger on the button, and the decision is much deeper than Montana deciding what happens in every downstream state.

Like it or not, the dam and levee system on the Missouri River functioned as designed during this year's floods. It's not the fault of the COE, state, or federal governments that the floodplain has been developed, or if floodplain landowners developed a false sense of security since the dams have went up. They did what they were supposed to, and the reality is that without the dam/levee system, the flooding situation would have been far worse.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming

It's my understsanding the case doesn't deal directly with public rights to stream access, but many groups see it as getting a foot in the door. If the public owns the stream bottom, the idea is it would make sense for the public to have some say in access, recreation, and management of those public resources.

[Tim Smith]

After this past summer's flooding on the Missouri River and watching the politics play out, I don't have a whole lot of respect for Montana government. They pretty much told everyone else below them on the Missouri to kiss their rear. Having been directly affected by the flood my sense of compassion and humor for all things Montana & Corp. of Engineers is on the negative side of the ledger.

If you want to blame someone at the Corps, blame the early decision not to keep parts of the floodplain connected to the mainstem so floods have a place to spread out and keep the main channel water heights low. A levee system is always hard on the people downstream.

If we had open floodplains, we'd also have less flooding downstream and much better fisheries in the main stem.

Unfortunately, that much land isn't easy to come by and ironically, groups like duck hunters oppose it because it screws up their current waterfowl management strategies.

[Bill Anderson]

The way I read the article, downstream water has nothing to do with the Montanan case. It has to do with ownership of the land the dams are sitting on and whether Montana can ask for rent on that land. This streambed ownership case could have wide reaching effects on streambed ownership all over the country. The U.S; Supreme Court has been asked to decide what IS and what is NOT a navigable stream, hence the reference back to the Lewis and Clark expedition and its records on rivers of that day. It should be interesting to see what happens.