Opinion ID: 508854
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Bed of the Navigable Stream

Text: 16 Consequently, the question to be addressed here is what constitutes the boundaries of the bed of a navigable stream, determination of which will also define the scope of the navigational servitude applicable to the facts alleged by Payne. In the Chicago, Milwaukee case, the Supreme Court defined the bed of a river as-- 17 that portion of its soil which is alternately covered and left bare, as there may be an increase or diminution in the supply of water, and which is adequate to contain it at its average and mean stage during the entire year, without reference to the extraordinary freshets of the winter or spring, or the extreme droughts of the summer or autumn. 18 312 U.S. at 596, 61 S.Ct. at 775 (quoting Alabama v. Georgia, 64 U.S. (23 How.) 505, 515, 16 L.Ed. 556 (1860)). 6 Thus, at least with respect to the vertical limits of the navigational servitude, the Supreme Court has left no doubt that the [h]igh-water mark bounds the bed of the river. Lands above it are fast lands and to flood them is a taking for which compensation must be paid. United States v. Willow River Power Co., 324 U.S. 499, 509, 65 S.Ct. 761, 767, 89 L.Ed. 1101 (1945); see Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164, 177, 100 S.Ct. 383, 391, 62 L.Ed.2d 332 (1979) (and cases cited) (none of these cases ever doubted that when the Government wished to acquire fast lands, it was required by the Eminent Domain Clause of the Fifth Amendment to condemn and pay fair value for that interest). 19 However, it is also well established that the fair value which is to be paid by the government for the taking of fast land does not include any value derived from access to or use of the stream or its flow. See Kaiser Aetna, 444 U.S. at 177, 100 S.Ct. at 391 (when the Government acquires fast lands to improve navigation, it is not required under the Eminent Domain Clause to compensate landowners for certain elements of damage attributable to riparian location). The underlying rationale for denying compensation for such claims is reflected in the Court's statement in United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co., 229 U.S. 53, 69, 33 S.Ct. 667, 674, 57 L.Ed. 1063 (1913), that [o]wnership of a private stream wholly upon the lands of an individual is conceivable; but that the running water in a great navigable stream is capable of private ownership is inconceivable. The Government ... cannot be required to pay any hypothetical additional value to a riparian owner who had no right to appropriate the current to his own commercial use. Id. at 76, 33 S.Ct. at 677; see also United States v. Virginia Elec. & Power Co., 365 U.S. 624, 629, 81 S.Ct. 784, 788, 5 L.Ed.2d 838 (1961). 7 20 In the present case, there is no allegation of any loss of property or value associated with the flow of the stream. Nor was the property allegedly taken by the government from Ms. Payne an artificial structure built in or under the bed of the Tombigbee River. Instead, the allegedly taken property was the native soil and rock which, although below the high-water mark, supported the fast land and house located beyond the high-water mark. Yet it should not be the extent of the analysis to conclude that the land or property in question was or was not located below the ordinary high-water mark. There must also be horizontal limits to the bed of a river; otherwise, the navigational servitude would extend infinitely in all directions and swallow up any claim for just compensation under the Fifth Amendment for damages occurring anywhere below the elevation of the high-water mark. Cf. Kaiser Aetna, 444 U.S. at 177, 100 S.Ct. at 391.