Opinion ID: 874253
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Did the State's Placing of Fill Along the Shoreline to Widen and Straighten the Road Extinguish the Littoral Rights?

Text: The Land Board did not address the issue of whether the State's action in placing fill in the lake had any impact on their littoral rights. Based upon decisions from other jurisdictions, the district court held that the fill added to the lakebed along the shore belongs to the riparian owner. It therefore concluded that the State's action had no effect on the Landowners' littoral rights. The Land Board contends that the district court erred in passing on the ownership of the fill because that issue was not raised in the administrative proceedings. The Transportation Department contends that the fill remains impressed with the public trust. In Idaho Forest Industries, Inc. v. Hayden Lake Watershed Improvement District, 112 Idaho 512, 521, 733 P.2d 733, 742 (1987), we held that filled or otherwise drained trust land must remain impressed with the public trust. The lakebed below the ordinary high water mark was public trust land before the fill was placed in the lake to widen and straighten the highway, and the fill placed on that public trust land is likewise public trust land. The placing of the fill did not eliminate the Landowners' littoral rights. The effect of the fill was to move the water's edge away from the Landowners' properties. The Landowners would have to cross the fill, which is public trust land, to access the lake. Without the fill, littoral landowners would also have to cross public trust land in order to exercise their littoral rights when the water level is below the ordinary high water mark. [O]ne of the basic rights enjoyed by owners of properties upon a navigable lake is the right to have access to the waters of such lake at the low water mark; this right is valuable and in many instances it is the controlling aspect of the value of such lands. Driesbach v. Lynch, 71 Idaho 501, 508, 234 P.2d 446, 450 (1951). Therefore, the fill placed on the lakebed by the State did not destroy the Landowners' littoral rights.