Opinion ID: 357282
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Scope of Corps's Jurisdiction Under Rivers and Harbors Act.

Text: 15 Analysis of the Rivers and Harbors Act must begin by acknowledging that it does not define the terms navigable water of the United States or waters of the United States. Pertinent regulations defining these terms have recently been adopted by the Corps. On July 25, 1975, after the San Francisco District of the Corps issued the two Public Notices dealing with the use of the MHHW line as the limit of its jurisdiction, the Corps promulgated the following definition of navigable waters of the United States: 16 The term, navigable waters of the United States, is administratively defined to mean waters that have been used in the past, are now used, or are susceptible to use as a means to transport interstate commerce landward to their ordinary high water mark and up to the head of navigation as determined by the Chief of Engineers, and also waters that are subject to the ebb and flow of the tides shoreward to their mean high water mark (mean higher high water mark on the Pacific coast ). See 33 C.F.R. 209.260 (ER 1165-2-302) for a more definitive explanation of this term. 17 33 C.F.R. § 209.120(d)(1) (emphasis added). 5 18 Regulation 209.260, adopted September 9, 1972, provides in most pertinent part, as follows: 19 Shoreward limit of jurisdiction. Regulatory jurisdiction in coastal areas extends to the line on the shore reached by the plane of the mean (average) high water. However, on the Pacific coast, the line reached by the mean of the higher high waters is used. 20 33 C.F.R. § 209.260(k)(1)(ii) (emphasis added). 6 21 Prior to these amendments the Regulation did not address itself to the shoreward limit of its jurisdiction and deferentially set forth its views regarding what constitutes navigable water as merely the views of the Department since the jurisdiction of the United States can be conclusively determined only through judicial proceedings. 33 C.F.R. § 209.260(a) (1971). 22 Leslie contends that the district court's ruling upholding the Corps's regulations is contrary to every reported decision defining the boundaries of tidal water bodies. Conceding that Congress may in theory have the power under the Commerce Clause to legislate with respect to land between the MHW and the MHHW line, Leslie argues that the navigable waters of the United States within the meaning of the Rivers and Harbors Act have consistently been judicially extended only to the MHW line. In response, the Corps and the Sierra Club argue that the extent of Rivers and Harbors Act jurisdiction on the Pacific coast is an issue of first impression for any appellate court, and has arisen in only two previous court cases. 7 They urge that the Corps's use of the MHHW line on the Pacific coast is a logical and reasonable attempt to harmonize its regulatory program throughout the country. Inasmuch as Leslie accurately describes the state of the authorities, the Corps and Sierra Club in effect invite us to read the Act differently than in the past to accommodate the desire of the Corps to extend its jurisdiction on the Pacific coast. We decline the invitation because we believe it is misdirected. It should be addressed to Congress rather than the Judiciary. 23 Turning to the authorities, the Supreme Court in 1915 held that federal regulatory jurisdiction over navigable tidal waters extends to the MHW line. Willink v. United States, 240 U.S. 572, 580, 36 S.Ct. 422, 60 L.Ed. 808 (1916). While Willink was concerned with the boundaries of the tidal waters on the Atlantic coast, the case is significant because it deals directly with the relationship between the federal navigational servitude and the Corps's regulation of navigable waters of the United States. The servitude, which reaches to the limits of navigable water, permits the removal of an obstruction to navigable capacity without compensation. See 33 U.S.C. § 403. Accordingly, an expansion of navigable water shoreward diminishes the protection of the Fifth Amendment. We think an interpretation of the Act which accomplishes this, first advanced seventy-two years after its enactment, should be viewed with skepticism to say the least. 24 The district court in support of its interpretation relied on the earlier river case of Greenleaf-Johnson Lumber Co. v. Garrison, 237 U.S. 251, 35 S.Ct. 551, 59 L.Ed. 939 (1915), to derive the underlying principle that federal authority over navigable waters necessarily . . . extends to the whole expanse of the stream, and is not dependent upon the depth or shallowness of the water. Greenleaf-Johnson, 237 U.S. at 263, 35 S.Ct. at 555. The trouble with this principle, however, is that it could support the use of the extreme high spring tides for the line of jurisdiction just as well as it supports MHW or MHHW. A principle which bestows more power than its beneficiary currently requests should not be readily accepted. 25 Consistent with Willink, however, is the leading case defining the extent of tidal water bodies on the Pacific coast. Borax Consolidated, Ltd. v. City of Los Angeles, 296 U.S. 10, 56 S.Ct. 23, 80 L.Ed. 9 (1935) originated in a property dispute brought by Los Angeles to quiet title to land on an island in Los Angeles harbor. At issue was the proper boundary between tidelands as to which the State possessed original title upon admittance to the Union, and uplands, which became public lands of the United States at the time of their acquisition from Mexico. Los Angeles claimed the disputed property under a tidelands grant from the State of California, while Borax Consolidated, the upland owner, claimed under a patent issued by the United States. The specific question presented on appeal to the Supreme Court was whether this boundary line was the mean high tide line as urged by Los Angeles, or the neap tide line, as Borax Consolidated contended. Neap tides are those which occur monthly when the moon is in its first and third quarters, during which time the tide does not rise as high or fall as low as on the average. In contrast, spring tides, which occur at times of new moon and full moon, are greater than average. During spring tide the high water rises higher and low water falls lower than usual. Borax, supra, 296 U.S. at 23, 56 S.Ct. 23. 26 The Supreme Court, affirming a decision of this court, held that the tideland extends to the MHW mark as technically defined by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey: that is, the average height of all the high waters at a given place over a period of 18.6 years. Id. at 26-27, 56 S.Ct. at 31 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court stated its rationale as follows: 27 (B)y the common law, the shore is confined to the flux and reflux of the sea at ordinary tides. . . . It is the land between ordinary high and low water mark, the land over which the daily tides ebb and flow. . . . 28 The range of the tide at any given place varies from day to day, and the question is: How is the line of ordinary high water to be determined? . . . 29 In determining the limit of the federal grant, we perceive no justification for taking neap high tides, or the mean of those tides, as the boundary between upland and tideland, and for thus excluding from the shore the land which is actually covered by the tides most of the time. In order to include the land that is thus covered, it is necessary to take the mean high-tide line, which . . . is neither the spring tide nor the neap tide, but a mean of all the high tides. 30 Id. at 22-23, 26, 56 S.Ct. at 29, 31. 31 The district court below distinguishes Borax on the grounds that the Supreme Court was dealing with an issue of title and made no reference to the federal navigational servitude under the Rivers and Harbors Act or to the distinction of MHHW and MHW. Sierra Club v. Leslie Salt Co., supra, 412 F.Supp. at 1101. However, Borax cannot be brushed aside so easily. The considerations involved in the regulation of navigable waters under the commerce power are intimately connected to the question of title to tidelands. The term navigable waters has been judicially defined to cover: (1) nontidal waters which were navigable in the past or which could be made navigable in fact by reasonable improvements, United States v. Appalachian Electric Power Co., 311 U.S. 377, 61 S.Ct. 291, 85 L.Ed. 243 (1940); Economy Light & Power Co. v. United States, 256 U.S. 113, 41 S.Ct. 409, 65 L.Ed. 847 (1921); and (2) waters within the ebb and flow of the tide. The Propeller Genesee Chief v. Fitzhugh, 53 U.S. (12 How.) 443, 13 L.Ed. 1058 (1851); United States v. Stoeco Homes, Inc., 498 F.2d 597 (3d Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 927, 95 S.Ct. 1124, 43 L.Ed.2d 397 (1975); United States v. President, etc., of Jamaica & R.T.R., 183 F. 598, 601 (C.C.E.D.N.Y.1910), rev'd on other grounds, 204 F. 759 (2d Cir. 1913); United States v. Banister Realty Co.,155 F. 583, 594 (C.C.E.D.N.Y.1907). Tideland, by definition, is the soil underlying tidal waters. To fix the shoreward boundary of tideland there must be fixed the shoreward limit of tidal water which, in turn, should fix the shoreward limit of navigable waters in the absence of a contrary intent on the part of Congress. To fix the limit of navigable water, for the purposes of the Rivers and Harbors Act, further shoreward than Borax fixed the limit of tidal water assumes the existence of an intent of Congress at the time of the Act's enactment of which we have no evidence. 32 The high probability that Congress in the Act intended that the shoreward limit of tidal water and navigable water be the same is supported by the fact that only five years previously in Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 14 S.Ct. 548, 38 L.Ed. 331 (1894), the Supreme Court held that a donation land claim, bounded by the Columbia river, . . . includes no title or right in the land below high-water mark, id. at 58, 14 S.Ct. at 570, resting its conclusion on the fact that lands under tide waters had great value to the public for the purposes of commerce, navigation, and fishery. Id. at 57, 14 S.Ct. at 569. Shively, we suggest, assumed that the shoreward limit of the navigational servitude, and thus also the shoreward limit of navigable water, fixed the seaward limit of private ownership. Numerous other cases have recognized that land ownership can be determined by the limits of navigable water. See, 1 R. E. Clark, Waters and Water Rights § 37.2(c) (1967). 33 This long-standing recognition that, for the purpose of fixing a shoreward limit, the terms tide water and navigable water are interchangeable strongly suggests that in Borax the Supreme Court, in the course of settling a title dispute, also fixed the shoreward boundary of navigable water on the Pacific coast. This is buttressed by the fact that since Borax and Willink, the MHW line has been routinely cited as the boundary of federal regulatory jurisdiction over tidal waters by every court to consider the question, with the two recent exceptions upon which the Corps and Sierra Club rely. United States v. Stoeco Homes, Inc., supra, 498 F.2d 597 (3d Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 927, 95 S.Ct. 1124, 43 L.Ed.2d 397 (1975); United States v. Holland, 373 F.Supp. 665 (M.D.Fla.1974); United States v. Cannon, 363 F.Supp. 1045 (D.Del.1973); United States v. Pot-Nets, 363 F.Supp. 812 (D.Del.1973); United States v. Lewis, 355 F.Supp. 1132 (S.D.Ga.1973). As stated in Holland, supra: 34 Borax became a landmark case in the law of tidal boundaries. And even though the test used by the Supreme Court was enunciated to settle a land dispute, and notwithstanding the fact that the test derived from an English court's desire to preserve to property owners so much of the land as is dry and maniorable, the test of the mean high water mark became the inveterate standard to be applied in limiting federal authority over navigable waters. 35 Holland, supra, 373 F.Supp. at 671. 36 Although these cases all arose on the Atlantic or Gulf coasts, each implicitly accepts Borax, a Pacific coast case, 8 as enunciating a rule applicable to all coasts of the United States. Taken together, they indicate the extent to which the MHW line has been consistently accepted as the boundary of navigable waters of the United States. To affirm the Corps's recent regulations setting the shoreward reach of federal regulatory power on the Pacific coast at the MHHW line would constitute a dramatic reversal of long-established decisional precedent. 9 37 The appellees insist that the Corps's recently promulgated regulations using the MHHW line are not an extension of jurisdiction, but merely a recognition of previously informal policy. They point to the testimony of various Corps officials, both in depositions taken for trial and in Congressional hearings, that the Government's policy had always been to assert Corps regulatory jurisdiction on the Pacific coast up to the MHHW; but that in marsh areas, the seaward edge of marsh grass was used to mark the limits of permit authority, even if the MHHW line was shoreward of this. This inchoate policy apparently remained unstated until 1969, when the first public reference to it was made in a Congressional hearing. House Committee on Government Operations, Protecting America's Estuaries: The San Francisco Bay and Delta, H.R.Rep. No. 1433, 91st Cong., 2d Sess., 50-51 (1970); House Committee on Government Operations, Increasing Protection For Our Waters, Wetlands, and Shorelines: The Corps of Engineers, H.R.Rep. No. 1323, 92d Cong., 2d Sess., 27-33 (1972). 10 Assuming arguendo that there was such a policy on the part of the Corps, we cannot accept an interpretation which was never stated or practiced, and which is so clearly contrary to the long-established precedent to which the Corps in its regulations prior to 1972 gave deference. Neither do we perceive how the use of MHHW on the Pacific coast and MHW elsewhere would bring any more harmony to the Corps's regulatory jurisdiction than has existed under the heretofore uniform application of the MHW line on all coasts. 11 38 Moreover, we have already indicated that more is involved than simply an expansion of the Corps's regulatory authority. As stated by the Supreme Court in United States v. Virginia Electric Co., 365 U.S. 624, 81 S.Ct. 784, 5 L.Ed.2d 838 (1961): 39 This navigational servitude sometimes referred to as a dominant servitude, . . . or a superior navigation easement, . . . is the privilege to appropriate without compensation which attaches to the exercise of the power of the government to control and regulate navigable waters in the interest of commerce. United States v. Commodore Park, 324 U.S. 386, 390, 65 S.Ct. 803, 89 L.Ed. 1017. 40 United States v. Virginia Electric, 365 U.S. at 627-28, 81 S.Ct. at 787 (emphasis added). 41 The navigational servitude reaches to the shoreward limit of navigable waters. To extend the servitude on the basis of a recently formulated administrative policy is to impose an additional burden of unknown magnitude on all private property that abuts on the Pacific coast. 42 We wish to point out, however, that our interpretation of the Rivers and Harbors Act is not governed by a belief that the Act represents the full exertion by Congress of its authority under the Commerce Clause. To paraphrase the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Stoeco Homes, supra, we can put aside the question whether under the Commerce Clause, Congress could extend the regulatory jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers to the MHHW line or beyond: 43 In the statute on which the government relies Congress did not do so. It extended that jurisdiction only to the navigable waters of the United States. . . .(The Rivers and Harbors Acts of 1890 and 1899) were enacted pursuant to the Commerce Clause, but neither reached the full extent of Congressional power over commerce. That power was exercised in 1890 to protect waters, in respect of which the United States has jurisdiction and in 1899 to protect waters of the United States. Congress obviously adopted the judicial definition of those waters as of 1890. That definition was the admiralty definition. 44 Stoeco Homes, supra, 498 F.2d at 608-09 (emphasis added). 45 We hold that in tidal areas, navigable waters of the United States, as used in the Rivers and Harbors Act, extend to all places covered by the ebb and flow of the tide to the mean high water (MHW) mark in its unobstructed, natural state. Accordingly, we reverse the district court's decision insofar as it found that the Corps's jurisdiction under the Rivers and Harbors Act includes all areas within the former line of MHHW in its unobstructed, natural state. 46 Our holding that the MHW line is to be fixed in accordance with its natural, unobstructed state is dictated by the principle recognized in Willink, supra, that one who develops areas below the MHW line does so at his peril. We recognize that under this holding issues of whether the Government's power may be surrendered or its exercise estopped, and if so, under what circumstances and to what extent, may arise. Leslie, for example, may contend that there has been a surrender by the Corps of its power under the Rivers and Harbors Act with respect to certain land below the MHW line. Such contentions, however, are not presently before us in this case. Therefore, at this time it is not necessary for us to pass on issues such as were before the court in Stoeco, supra. 47