Tom Chandler at TU is conducting a river rights campaign to save some of his local fishing waters.
It’s a confusing issue, particularly with a local government apparently claiming it has the authority to declare rivers in Siskiyou County, California, ”non-navigable.” The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors (BOS) is trying to have the Scott and Shasta Rivers declared non-navigable and allegedly threatening to do the same to the McCloud and Upper Sacramento Rivers. This seems, from what I’ve read, to be for the benefit of a select few.
Can a local government even do this? A quick Google search suggests otherwise.
From the website of the Army Corps of Engineers:
Section 329.3 – General policies Precise definitions of “navigable waters of the United States” or “navigability” are ultimately dependent on judicial interpretation and cannot be made conclusively by administrative agencies.
From adventuresports.com (a pro-public use site): “The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that “rivers that are navigable in fact are navigable in law.” If a river is physically navigable, it is legally navigable. No court or agency has to designate it as such….If there is a dispute about whether a river is navigable for title purposes, only the federal courts can ultimately decide it, and that is a lengthy, expensive process.”
“Federal courts have held that the state does not simply own the river and the riverside land, it holds it “in trust for the public.” These court decisions, taken together, are known as the Public Trust Doctrine. The state holds the resources in trust for the benefit of all the people. The general public has a right to fully enjoy these resources for a wide variety of public uses including navigation, recreation, and fisheries. The state cannot divest itself of these public-trust ownership.”
CLICK HERE TO HELP TOM WITH HIS EMAIL CAMPAIGN. And also read the many posted comments. Guys found a lot of the same stuff above and discuss this issue in even more depth.
