Court Opinion

ID: 9638696
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:51:08.766851+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:09.013560
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Associate Justice.
We need not decide how far the doctrine of the Appalachian case is new, and on that point I express no opinion. On all other points, I concur in the opinion of the court.
The Commission’s finding of navigability seems to me right not only under the reasonable-improvement rule but for two independent reasons as well. (1) Beyond question there was, at various times in the past, unbroken commercial navigation of the river by boats of a sort. “Commercial disuse * * * does not amount to an abandonment of a navigable river or prohibit future exertion of federal control. Economy Light & Power Co. v. United States, 256 U.S. 113, 118, 124, 41 S.Ct. 409, 65 L.Ed. 847.”1 “When once found to be navigable, a waterway remains so.”2 (2) Beyond question the river is now capable of navigation, in broken stretches, by boats of a sort. “Navigability, in the sense of the law, is.'not destroyed bcause the watercourse is interrupted by occasional natural obstructions or portages.”3 “There has never been doubt that the navigability referred to in the cases was navigability despite the obstruction of falls, rapids, sand bars, carries or shifting currents.”4 Congress, in the definition of “navigable waters” in the Federal Power Act, has expressly recognized this principle.5

 Arizona v. California, 283 U.S. 423, 453, 454, 51 S.Ct. 522, 525, 75 L.Ed. 1154.

 United States v. Appalachian Power Co., 311 U.S. 377, 408, 61 S.Ct. 291, 299, 85 L.Ed. 243.

 Economy Light & Power Co. v. United States, 256 U.S. 113, 122, 41 S.Ct. 409, 412, 65 L.Ed. 847.

 United States v. Appalachian Electric Power Co., 311 U.S. 377, 408, 409, 61 S.Ct. 291, 300, 85 L.Ed. 243.

 49 Stat. 838, 16 U.S.C.A. § 796 (8).