Although I didn't spend a lot of time trying to understand the legalese of the link in question (http://www.spadata.com/index.php?name=Downloads&req=getit&lid=23), two facts that struck me immediately were that the legal high water mark is 35 feet (!) above the ordinary water mark, and that the location in question is 3.5 miles from the main channel of the river. I can't help but think that the geographic location, with hurricanes and/or spring run-off from a HUGE watershed affecting the high water mark plays a very key role in this case, and presents a situation that is not likely to be duplicated in many (any?) other parts of the country, which may explain the lack of widespread press coverage for this case. Having said that, it should also be kept in mind that water law in the USA is very complicated, with riparian codes prevalent in the east, and appropriative codes prevalent in the west. If the case law histories for each state are then added on top of that, it's easy to come to the conclusion that water laws - including access/navigability issues are not at all (and not likely to be) harmonized. I'd be surprised if the national and state variations in water/navigability law didn't somehow prevent the judge's ruling being applicable for the whole USA. American Whitewater has compiled river/water access information for all states, and the link for Louisiana is here: http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Wiki/access:la (by substituting state designations, summaries for any state can be found) A detailed writeup on navigability issues is presented here: http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Wiki/stewardship:navigability Erik Sprenne *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Sun Sep 24 2006 - 08:34:28 PDT
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