Riparian or Water Rights

In determining boundaries there is a clear distinction between properties that front on navigable and non-navigable waters. Navigable waters are both those bodies of water that are obviously highways of commerce (the Hudson River, the Delaware River, the Ohio River, the Mississippi River etc) and those that have been declared by a state legislature as navigable.

In the case of navigable waters, title goes to the average low water mark. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court defined this as the ""ordinary low water mark, unaffected by drought; that is, the height of the water at ordinary stages." Appeal of York Haven Water & Power Co., 212 Pa. 622, 62 A.97 (1905.) Land beyond the low water mark belongs to the state government in the case of the 13 original states. Lands between the high and low water marks are subject to the police powers of the states. (see United States v. Pennsylvania Salt Mfg. Co., 16 F.2d 476 (E.D. Pa., 1926)). In the case of the original 13 states, upon ratification of the United States Constitution, title to these lands did not change, it remained vested in the several states.

However, these titles became subject to the "Commerce Clause" of the Constitution which created an easement or "servitude" benefiting the federal government for the purpose of regulating commerce on navigable bodies of water. Borax Consolidated, Ltd. v. City of Los Angeles, 29 U.S. 10, 56 S. Ct. 23, 80 L.Ed 9 (1935).

As new lands were acquired by the United States, either by purchase or treaty, title to the beds of all navigable or tidal lakes, rivers, or their tributaries became vested in the United States, unless they had been validly conveyed into private ownership by the former sovereign. McKnight v. Brodell, 212 F.Supp 45. During the territorial period of these lands, the United States held these title "in trust" for the benefit of the future states which would be carved out of the territory. Hymes v. Grimes Company, 165 F. 2d 323. Each of the states were to come into the Union on an "equal footing" with the original thirteen states.

Under the equal footing doctrine, territorial states are vested with the same sovereign title rights to wetlands as the original thirteen states. Pollard v. Hagan, 44 U.S. 212, 3 How. 212, 11 L.Ed. 565 (1845). However, during the territorial period, the United States could convey certain of these lands under the limited circumstances of promoting commerce. Brewer Elliot Oil and Gas Co. v. U S., 260 U.S. 77, 43 S.Ct 60, 67 L.Ed. 140 (1922).

Any questions as to the ownership of these lands was resolved by Congress passing the Submerged Land Act, 43 U.S.C.A. 1301, which confirmed and quit-claimed title in various states to the beds of all navigable bodies of water. While this act conveyed navigable waters to the states, non-navigable waters outside the 13 colonies remained the property of the United States. Waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tides, but which are non-navigable passed to the states.

In the western United States, water rights are generally allocated under the principle of prior appropriation.