Court Opinion

ID: 9686808
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:07:09.207217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:22.187581
License: Public Domain

FOLEY, Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in the majority’s decision that the township did not abandon Main and Reed streets. I respectfully dissent, however, from the majority’s conclusion that the Soo Line Railroad holds title to the land added between its prior shoreline property and the Mississippi River. I would hold that the State of Minnesota holds title to the property created by dredging the bed of the Mississippi River.
The Mississippi River is United States history. It is the history of Minnesota. It belongs to all the people — to the state in trust for all the people. As it passes the village of Reads Landing, the history of the river — of the early French explorers, the Mark Twain writings, and the beginning point of the territory and then the State of Minnesota — looms large in the recorded explorations of the upper Mississippi. The Song of Hiawatha, according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, was “full of melodious cadences.” Whether of the Mississippi where the Sioux and Chippewa rode upon these waters, or in Maine with the Ojibwa and Algonquins, his words could very well apply to the land of sky blue waters: “By the Shining Big-Sea Water.”
The spoils from the bed of this river created by artificial means — dredging—should not be reduced to a private campground by a tortured definition of the term “accretion,” but should be declared owned by the State of Minnesota in trust for the people — open to all — to be enjoyed by all — in keeping with its history.
In Minnesota, title to shore lands abutting navigable waters extends in a limited fashion to the low-water mark, and absolutely to the ordinary high-water mark. State v. Korrer, 127 Minn. 60, 71, 76, 148 N.W. 617, 621, 623 (1914). The shore owner also possesses certain riparian rights incident to ownership of the shore land, such as use of and access to the water. Id. at 71, 148 N.W. at 621.
Title to the bed of the water below the low-water mark, however, is held by the state in its sovereign capacity, “for common public use, and in trust for the people of the state.” Id. at 70, 148 N.W. at 621. The Submerged Lands Act provides:
It is determined and declared to be in the public interest that (1) title to and ownership of the lands beneath navigable waters within the boundaries of the respective States * * * be ⅜ * ⅜ recognized, confirmed, established, and vested in and assigned to the respective States * * * in which the land is located.
43 U.S.C. § 1311(a) (1988). The riparian owner’s use extends only “to any purpose not inconsistent with the public right.” Korrer, 127 Minn, at 72, 148 N.W. at 622.
Pursuant to the doctrine of accretions and relictions, a riparian owner ordinarily gains a vested right to property added to shore land by the gradual recession of the water or the washing ashore of deposits from the water bed. State v. Longyear Holding Co., 224 Minn. 451, 467-68, 29 N.W.2d 657, 667 (1947). But in Longyear, the court concluded that where the drainage of a lake was “sudden and artificial, accomplished through the agency and authority of the state,” the doctrine of relictions was not applicable, and the *51lake bed remained the property of the state. Id., 29 N.W.2d at 667. Similarly, here, the dredging of the Mississippi River near Reads Landing was sudden and artificial. The river bed itself, below the low-water mark, was heaved up and deposited on the river bank. Under these circumstances, the right of the state to that land should be held inviolate.
I find State v. Slotness, 289 Minn. 485, 185 N.W.2d 530 (1971), cited by the majority, to be distinguishable. In Slotness, the state conceded that a riparian landowner had the right to artificially fill the edge of a navigable lake and thereby create new land out to the point of navigability. Id. at 488, 185 N.W.2d at 533. The state agreed that the rights in this newly-created land belonged to the riparian landowner, subject to the government’s power to remove or reclaim the land without compensating the landowner if necessary to improve navigability. Id. at 488-89, 185 N.W.2d at 533.
Slotness, however, did not involve the artificial deposit of the lake bed itself upon the shore. Id. at 486,185 N.W.2d at 532. In the Submerged Lands Act, the federal government recognized the states’ title to “lands beneath navigable waters,” including “all filled in, made, or reclaimed lands which formerly were lands beneath navigable waters.” 43 U.S.C. § 1301(a)(3) (1988); 43 U.S.C. § 1311(a). Here, the land added between the Mississippi River and the Soo Line’s land was formerly “beneath navigable waters.” See Marine Ry. & Coal Co. v. United States, 257 U.S. 47, 61, 65, 42 S.Ct. 32, 33, 34, 66 L.Ed. 124 (1921) (land filled by United States was “made” land); cf. California, ex rel. State Lands Comm’n v. United States, 457 U.S. 273, 285-87, 102 S.Ct. 2432, 2439-40, 73 L.Ed.2d 1 (1982) (distinguishing “accretions” from “made” land). The land dredged artificially from the Mississippi River bed should be deemed vested in the state to be held in trust for the people.