Opinion ID: 1418227
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Riparian rights to build structures in aid of navigation

Text: The next question is whether riparian owners have a right, which may not be taken without compensation, to place permanent structures on the state's submerged and submersible land adjacent to their riparian property. [10] It is clear that, as to riparian owners who have not yet done so, the Board's leasing program does not interfere with any vested rights. The Court of Appeals correctly so held. Even when considering the legislature's express grant of a riparian privilege to build wharves on state-owned land, [11] this court has consistently described that privilege as one which may be withdrawn at any time before it is exercised. For example, in Montgomery v. Shaver, 40 Or. 244, 248, 66 P. 923, 924 (1901), the opinion describes the wharfing statute as a permissive statute, which alludes to certain things that may be done, but does not vest any right until exercised. It constitutes a license revocable at the pleasure of the legislature until acted upon. The court spoke at greater length in Bowlby v. Shively, 22 Or. 410, 420-21, 30 P. 154, 157 (1892), aff'd, Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 14 S.Ct. 548, 38 L.Ed. 331 (1894):    an upland owner on tidal waters has no rights as against the state or its grantees to extend wharves in front of his land, or to any private or exclusive rights whatever in the tide lands, except as he has derived them from the statute.    But this act is not a grant: It simply authorizes upland owners on navigable rivers within the corporate limits of any incorporated town to construct wharves in front of their land; it does not vest any right until exercised; it is a license, revocable at the pleasure of the legislature, until acted upon or availed of. Although Bowlby involved tidelands, the state's title to other land underlying navigable waters stands on the same footing and the same principles are applicable. Land Bd. v. Corvallis Sand & Gravel, 283 Or., supra at 157-59, 582 P.2d 1352; Lewis v. City of Portland, 25 Or. 133, 160, 35 P. 256 (1893). In circumstances where the legislature has not expressly granted permission to occupy the submerged and submersible land, we have held that the riparian owner had, as a matter of custom, been accorded the privilege of doing so, subject to the power of the legislature to regulate or prohibit such occupation. In Coquille M. & M. Co. v. Johnson, 52 Or. 547, 551-52, 98 P. 132, 134 (1908), we held that a riparian owner on navigable water had, in the absence of any statute regulating or prohibiting such activity, the right to construct a log boom adjacent to his property. That right, which we termed a mere franchise, was described in the following quotation: `   [R]iparian owners upon navigable fresh waters and lakes may construct, in the shoal water in front of their land, wharves, piers, landings, and booms, in aid of and not obstructing navigation. This is a riparian right, being dependent upon title to the bank, and not upon title to the bed of the river. Its exercise may be regulated or prohibited by the State; but, so long as not prohibited, it is a private right, derived from a passive or implied license by the public.   ' 2 Gould, Waters (2 ed.) § 179   . That quotation is also made a part of the opinion in Lewis v. City of Portland, 25 Or., supra at 163-64, 35 P. 256. Neither statutes nor the decisions of this court have recognized any irrevocable riparian right to construct structures, even in aid of navigation, on state-owned land. One case cited by plaintiffs in support of their claim of riparian rights requires additional comment. In Pacific Elevator Co. v. Portland, 65 Or. 349, 133 P. 72 (1913), plaintiff owned a tract, within the city limits, consisting of both upland and the adjoining submersible land. It had never exercised its statutory wharfing privilege. The city proposed to build a wharf on plaintiff's submersible land and on out past the ordinary low water line onto state-owned land. The decision holds that the city was not entitled to do so. It does not, however, as plaintiffs claim, stand for the proposition that wharfing privileges, even though not yet exercised, cannot be taken by the state. It holds only that the legislature, when it authorized the city, in its charter, to provide for the construction of wharves and docks, had not impliedly repealed the wharfing statute and thus revoked private wharfing privileges within the city, and that the city did not have the power to build wharves on either private or state-owned land without taking the proper steps to acquire the land it proposed to use. Admittedly, the opinion contains language which might be read as supporting plaintiff's position in this case. At page 401, 133 P. at page 82, the opinion describes the wharfing privilege: The act of 1862 (Section 5201, L.O.L.) grants the right of wharfage across the state's land out to the harbor line fixed by state authority to the riparian owner. This license has never been revoked by the state but has been reaffirmed by the lawmakers and upheld by the courts. Then, at page 402, 133 P. at page 83, it describes the plaintiff's title to the submersible land over which the city proposed to build:    Plaintiff has succeeded to the title which the state formerly had in the lots described. Its title is subject to the paramount right of navigation existing in the public and subject to such reasonable regulation as the state through its municipality may prescribe. The opinion then continues: To allow this property to be taken for public use without just compensation would work a great injustice and do violence to the Constitution of Oregon. The sentence last quoted refers to the land owned by the plaintiff in fee, not to its unexercised wharfing privilege to occupy state-owned land. As to that privilege, the court had concluded earlier in its opinion that the city did not stand in the state's shoes. There was, then, no need to determine whether the state could revoke the privilege before it was exercised without compensating the riparian owner. Earlier cases had, as we have shown, indicated that the state could do so. The decision in Pacific Elevator is consistent with those cases. It does not aid plaintiffs here. We find, then, no authority for plaintiffs' position that riparian owners on navigable waters have a right to build navigational structures on the state-owned beds adjacent to their property which may not be revoked without compensation prior to its exercise. They have cited a series of New York cases, some of which appear to hold that riparian owners do have such a right. [12] We are not convinced that these cases stand for everything that plaintiffs claim for them. Assuming that they do, however, only means that New York has recognized a proprietary riparian right which Oregon has not. That choice is within the power of each state. State Land Bd. v. Corvallis Sand & Gravel Co., 429 U.S. 363, 97 S.Ct. 582, 50 L.Ed.2d 550 (1977).