Opinion ID: 600290
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Ebb-and-Flow Tidelands at Statehood

Text: 12 Phillips Petroleum held that lands beneath waters influenced by the ebb and flow of the tide, whether navigable or not, were within the public trust and transferred to the new states upon their entry into the Union. 484 U.S. at 479-81, 108 S.Ct. at 796-97. The State contests the district court's finding that none of the land was subject to the ebb and flow of the tides in 1812. We need not address this factual finding. The State owned all the land at the time it transferred the parcels to Lafourche Realty's ancestors-in-title, either under the equal footing doctrine (described in Phillips Petroleum ) or under the Swamp Land Grant Act, which conveyed swamp lands subject to overflow to the State. Whether the State continues to own any ebb-and-flow tidelands is a question of alienability, not acquisition. 13