Opinion ID: 355551
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Law of Accretion and Avulsion.

Text: It is fundamental that: 54 (W)here running streams are the boundaries between States, the same rule applies as between private proprietors, namely, that when the bed and channel are changed by the natural and gradual processes known as erosion and accretion, the boundary follows the varying course of the stream . . . . 55 Arkansas v. Tennessee, 246 U.S. 158, 173, 38 S.Ct. 301, 305, 62 L.Ed. 638 (1918). 56 See also Missouri v. Nebraska, 196 U.S. 23, 34-35, 25 S.Ct. 155, 49 L.Ed. 372 (1904); Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U.S. at 360-61, 12 S.Ct. 396; Mayor, Aldermen & Inhabitants of New Orleans v. United States, 35 U.S. (10 Pet.) 662, 9 L.Ed. 573 (1836). Equally well settled is the proposition that 57 (i)f the stream from any cause, natural or artificial, suddenly leaves its old bed and forms a new one, by the process known as an avulsion, the resulting change of channel works no change of boundary, which remains in the middle of the old channel, although no water may be flowing in it, and irrespective of subsequent changes in the new channel. 58 Arkansas v. Tennessee, supra, 246 U.S. at 173, 38 S.Ct. at 304. 59 See also Missouri v. Nebraska, supra, 196 U.S. at 35, 25 S.Ct. 155; Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U.S. at 361, 12 S.Ct. 396. 60 The trial court found that the eastern boundary of the Omaha Indian Reservation changed with the shifting river since the tribe had failed to show that the river had moved by avulsion. In reaching this result the trial court ruled that an avulsion occurs only where a sudden shift in a channel cuts off land so that after the shift it remains identifiable as land which existed before the change of the channel and which never became a part of the river bed. 433 F.Supp. at 73. In doing so, the trial court rejected the plaintiffs' theory that the doctrine of avulsion is equally applicable when a sudden and perceptible shift of the thalweg occurs within the bed of the stream or over as well as around land in place. The government's evidence was that such a perceptible shift might occur when the river goes out of its bed and the land is submerged by a flood or freshet. We find the district court too narrowly focuses on identifiable land in place as the sole criterion of avulsion without giving proper weight to the plaintiffs' theory of their case and to the factual record presented. 24 61 The Supreme Court has defined accretion as an addition to land coterminous with the water, which is formed so slowly that its progress cannot be perceived . . . . Jefferis v. East Omaha Land Co., 134 U.S. 178, 193, 10 S.Ct. 518, 522, 33 L.Ed. 872 (1890). 25 In contrast, avulsion has been said to occur in various ways. One observation is that it occurs where there is a sudden change of the banks of a stream such as occurs when a river forms a new course by going through a bend, the sudden abandonment by a stream of its old channel and the creation of a new one, or a sudden washing from one of its banks of a considerable quantity of land and its deposit on the opposite bank. 26 III American Law of Property § 15.26, at 855-56 (1952) (footnotes omitted). 62 A clear distinction between accretion and the sudden and perceptible movement associated with avulsion is, however, often obscured when applied to the actual movement of uncontrolled rivers. The Supreme Court emphasized the unpredictability of the Missouri River in Nebraska v. Iowa, 406 U.S. 117, 119, 92 S.Ct. 1379, 1381, 31 L.Ed.2d 733 (1972): 63 (E)xperience showed that the fickle Missouri River . . . refused to be bound by the Supreme Court decree (of 1892). In the past thirty-five years the river has changed its course so often that it has proved impossible to apply the court decision in all cases, since it is difficult to determine whether the channel of the river has changed by 'the law of accretion' or 'that of avulsion.'  Eriksson, Boundaries of Iowa, 25 Iowa J. of Hist. and Pol. 163, 234 (1927). 27 64 The early decision in St. Louis v. Rutz, 138 U.S. 226, 11 S.Ct. 337, 34 L.Ed. 941 (1891), illustrates an attempt at more closely defining avulsion in light of actual river conditions. The Court found that violent erosion of shoreland along the Mississippi River between 1865 and 1875 was avulsive in nature, sustaining findings that the caving in and washing away of the same was rapid and perceptible . . . (occurring) principally at the spring rises or floods of high water in the Mississippi. . . .  Id. at 231, 11 S.Ct. at 339. 28 65 Rapidity of erosion as the determinative factor in a finding of avulsion was, however, rejected in early dicta in Nebraska v. Iowa, 143 U.S. 359, 12 S.Ct. 396, 36 L.Ed. 186 (1892). See also Oklahoma v. Texas, 260 U.S. 606, 43 S.Ct. 221, 67 L.Ed. 428 (1923) (where the Court applied the rule of accretion, following Nebraska v. Iowa, to the Red River); Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, 223 U.S. 605, 32 S.Ct. 340, 56 L.Ed. 570 (1912). Although the litigated facts of Nebraska v. Iowa appear to have dealt only with the movement of the Missouri River cutting across the neck of a U-shaped land formation commonly known as an ox-bow, 29 the Court expressed its view that the rapidity of the process of subtraction or addition did not prevent application of the rule of accretion. 66 In discussing the rules of accretion and avulsion the Supreme Court quoted, among others, Vattel, an early civil law authority. Vattel's formulation of avulsion held that when the violence of the stream separates a considerable part from one piece of land and joins it to another, but in such manner that it can still be identified, the property of the soil so removed naturally continues vested in its former owner. 30 143 U.S. at 366, 12 S.Ct. at 398. 67 It is obvious, however, when viewed in the context of the entire opinion, that the Court was not seeking to narrow the traditional scope of avulsion but merely to demonstrate that the rule of accretion, as traditionally defined, was equally applicable to the Missouri River. The Court, in defining avulsion, cited Gould on Waters, noting: 68 It is equally well settled, that where a stream, which is a boundary, from any cause suddenly abandons its old and seeks a new bed, such change of channel works no change of boundary; and that the boundary remains as it was, in the center of the old channel, although no water may be flowing therein. This sudden and rapid change of channel is termed, in the law, avulsion. In Gould on Waters, sec. 159, it is said: But if the change is violent and visible, and arises from a known cause, such as a freshet, or a cut through which a new channel is formed, the original thread of the stream continues to mark the limits of the two estates. 2 Bl.Com. 262; Angell on Water Courses, § 60; Trustees of Hopkins' Academy v. Dickinson, 9 Cush. 544; Buttenuth v. St. Louis Bridge Co., 123 Illinois 535 (17 N.E. 439); Hagan v. Campbell, 8 Porter (Ala.) 9; Murry v. Sermon, 1 Hawks (8 N.C.) 56. 69 143 U.S. at 361, 12 S.Ct. at 397 (emphasis added). 70 After Nebraska v. Iowa only a few federal cases have addressed the scope of the avulsion rule in a context other than an ox-bow cut-off involving permanently emerged land in place. 31 In Veatch v. White, 23 F.2d 69 (9th Cir. 1927), the facts revealed that: 71 Years ago, between 1859 and 1874, in the southern shore of Puget Island there was a slough running in a northwesterly direction from the Columbia river. The slough, although only used by fishing boats, had a channel that was shallow and more or less filled with snags. So much of the area of Puget Island as was separated from the mainland by this slough was called Coffee Island, which gradually became submerged. Some time before 1894 the water of the river began to bore out and enlarged the slough, and when freshet waters of 1894 came the slough was so enlarged that a channel formed, which after 1894 was used for navigation. After this new channel was created, shoals formed to some extent on the south, or Oregon, side of Coffee Island, and navigation on that side became unsafe for deep draft ships . . . . 72 Id. at 70 (emphasis added). 73 Relying on the definition of avulsion in Nebraska v. Iowa, the court held that: 74 (T)hough by erosion of Puget Island the river has widened and the center of the old channel has been changed somewhat, and has become more shallow than it was at the time of the fixing of the boundary of the state of Oregon, such changes are not to be confused with changes made by the creation of the slough channel, which was caused by sudden and known causes, not by accretion. The demarking line must therefore remain the center of the channel between Puget Island and Oregon before the avulsion. 75 Id. at 71 (emphasis added). 76 This court applied the same rationale in Uhlhorn v. U. S. Gypsum Co., 366 F.2d 211 (8th Cir. 1966), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 1026, 87 S.Ct. 753, 17 L.Ed.2d 674 (1967), where the end of a meander bend in the Mississippi River gradually became separated from the mainland area by a small channel. During a flood in 1938 the subsidiary channel was scoured out making it the main navigational channel following the flood. Relying upon Nebraska v. Iowa, this court, through Judges Vogel, Van Oosterhout and Mehaffy, held that, despite the fact that the bar separating the old and new channel was as much as four feet under water when the change occurred, the change was avulsive. 32 Id. at 219-20. The court observed: 77 In most instances where a river changes by avultive processes, it has left intervening land above high water mark, but we do not think the elevation of the land mass between an old channel and a new one that is cut by avultive processes is a decisive criterion for a change in a state boundary. By all logic and reason, the boundary should not and does not change from the original thalweg except as the Supreme Court said in State of Arkansas v. State of Tennessee, supra, by gradual process. Since there was admittedly nothing gradual here, we conclude and believe that State of Arkansas v. State of Tennessee, supra, commands that the boundary remains in the thalweg of the Bendway Channel subject to its erosion and accretions occurring prior to its stagnation and death. 78 Id. at 219 (emphasis added). 79 Several state cases have similarly recognized that the sudden, perceptible change of the channel, whether within or without the river's original bed, is a critical factor in defining an avulsion. 33 80 Our review of the foregoing authorities leads us to conclude that, although evidence of identifiable land in place may have some probative value that erosion has not occurred, the fact that intervening land may not be visible at the time a sudden flood or freshet occurs is not conclusive in itself. 34 To reason otherwise would be to limit the rule to the rare situation involving only an obvious neck cut-off where intervening land is not submerged. The history of the rule, the case law developed under it, and the policy underlying the doctrine all support a broader application. 35 81 In Bonelli Cattle Co. v. Arizona, 414 U.S. 313, 327, 94 S.Ct. 517, 38 L.Ed.2d 526 (1973), overruled on other grounds, Oregon ex rel. State Land Board v. Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co., 429 U.S. 363, 97 S.Ct. 582, 50 L.Ed.2d 550 (1977), the Supreme Court explained: 82 The rationale for the doctrine of avulsion is a need to mitigate the hardship that a shift in title caused by a sudden movement of the river would cause the abutting landowners were the accretion principle to be applied. 36 83 Undisputed historical data relating to the early movements of the Missouri River make clear that the wild and uncontrolled movements of the river did not occur with mathematical precision or follow predictable paths. In fact, as the voluminous testimony and documentary evidence presented by both sides reveal, accretion and avulsion are interrelated phenomena often occurring together and in fact often acting as the motivating force for each other. Erosion and accretion, for example, may change the angle at which a river attacks a downstream bank, increasing the likelihood of an avulsive cut-through. Erosion may narrow the neck of a meander bend producing the necessary conditions for an ox-bow cut-off. Or, as the government asserts, an avulsion can produce river characteristics such as low river current energy areas which are favorable to rapid deposition. 84 When weighed with the significant policy considerations involved, we hold that, under governing principles, the critical determinant of avulsion is a sudden perceptible shift of the channel. 37 Only where the thalweg gradually moves through the intervening land as a direct consequence of erosion and the imperceptible process of accretion to the forming bank do the policies underlying the accretion and avulsion rules justify altering permanent land boundaries to conform with the gradually changing thalweg. 85 In the present case the plaintiffs claim that a sudden and unusual jump in the thalweg within the bed of a stream or over, as well as around, land (submerged or not) invokes the doctrine of avulsion and its corollary rule that the boundary does not change with the shift of the thalweg. The trial court in rejecting this theory held that a sudden and unusual (erratic) jump or movement of the thalweg without evidence of identifiable land in place falls within the historical rule of accretion. We find this ruling inconsistent with settled principles governing the rule of accretion and the broader parameters involving the doctrine of avulsion. We therefore conclude that it was error for the trial court to reject the plaintiffs' legal theory in its evaluation of the evidence. 86 We now turn to the factual findings of the district court. 87