[Talk-us] Mapping Streams was RE: HI: Hawaii GIS Data

[Lord-Castillo, Brett]

That text below is referring to the submerged lands act, but the submerged lands act only applies to tidally affected seaward nautical lands, not to inland navigable rivers. Inside the boundaries of states, a patchwork of common law and state laws dictate what is public and private, and it varies significantly from state to state. The private right to tidal lands extends from English Colonial Law and predates the Constitution, creating a hodge podge of at least 24 different land rights regimes for submerged lands under navigable waters. Through the commerce clause, actually navigable waters connecting to interstate water bodies can be federally regulated, but the federal government has chosen not to regulated inland submerged lands. The most extreme rights regime towards the public side is Oregon, where submerged land extends to the mean high tide line, and the dry sand beach has a public easement up to the vegetation line. In the opposite direction, Massachusetts not only considers submerged land to only extend to the mean low water line, but under Massachusetts General Law, submerged lands are privately held with an easement to fish, fowl, and freely pass for navigation between public waters.
In other words, any mappers out there planning to do streams and rivers, check first on the state laws governing navigable streams in your state. To be navigable, a water body must connect with a continuous interstate waterway and be actually navigable (or tidally influenced); traverse by canoe is enough to be actually navigable. Any stream on private land which is not actually navigable is probably considered fully private land and not going to have a public easement (but again, check by state on that too before you attempt any mapping on private land).


Brett Lord-Castillo
Information Systems Designer/GIS Programmer
St. Louis County Police
Office of Emergency Management
14847 Ladue Bluffs Crossing Drive
Chesterfield, MO 63017

Office: 314-628-5400

Fax: 314-628-5508

Direct: 314-628-5407

 

-----Original Message-----

Date: Sat, 5 Dec 2009 09:49:36 -0500
From: Anthony <osm at inbox.org>
Subject: Re: [Talk-us] Hawaii GIS Data
To: Matthew Luehrmann <matthew.luehrmann at gmail.com>
Cc: Talk-us at openstreetmap.org
Message-ID:
	<71cd4dd90912050649m48645d55s9cfdff52e8cf71ca at mail.gmail.com>
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On Fri, Dec 4, 2009 at 11:40 PM, Matthew Luehrmann <
matthew.luehrmann at gmail.com> wrote:

> Just as a note for those interested in mapping streams and rivers, "the
> riverbed and banks, up to the ordinary high water mark, are state land,
> held
> in trust for the public for navigation, fishing, and other non-destructive
> visits."
>

Apparently this is US federal law, superseding any state law (at least for
navigable streams and rivers) under the commerce clause.

Interesting.  However, you'd still need permission from the owner of the
land where you start and end your journey, correct?
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