A Legal Guide to the Public's Right to Access and Use CA's Navigable Waters

LEGAL GUIDE TO THE

UBLIC’S RIGHTS TO ACCESS AND USE

ALIFORNIA’S NAVIGABLE WATERS

11/20/2017

Contents

PREFACE .......................................................................................................................................... 4

ACKNOWLEDGMENT ........................................................................................................................ 4

I. PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE .......................................................................................................... 5

A. Overview of Public Rights to Access and Use California’s Navigable Waters ............... 6

B. The California State Lands Commission’s Role in Protecting Public Access Rights ..... 7

II. PUBLIC ACCESS LAWS ............................................................................................................. 8

A. Ancient Origins ................................................................................................................ 9

B. Common Law Public Access and Use Rights ................................................................ 10

C. Act of Admission ........................................................................................................... 12

D. Equal Footing Doctrine .................................................................................................. 13

E. California Constitution ................................................................................................... 13

F. Statutory Enactments ......................................................................................................... 14

1. Prohibitions on the Sale or Elimination of Access ..................................................... 14

2. McAteer-Petris Act – San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development

Commission .......................................................................................................................... 15

3. Subdivision Map Act .................................................................................................. 16

4. California Coastal Act ................................................................................................ 17

5. Bridges – Streets and Highways Code ....................................................................... 19

6. Other Statutory Enactments and Public Agencies that Protect and Promote Public

Access ................................................................................................................................... 20

G. OTHER PUBLIC ACCESS LAWS ............................................................................... 22

1. Express Dedication ..................................................................................................... 22

2. Implied Dedication ..................................................................................................... 23

3. Implied Dedication in Coastal Areas .......................................................................... 25

4. Restrictions on Implied Dedication ............................................................................ 26

5. Prescriptive Use .......................................................................................................... 27

6. Private Fee Title Owners May Not Prevent Public Access and Use on Lands and

Waters Subject to a Public Trust Easement .......................................................................... 27

III. NAVIGABLE WATERS .......................................................................................................... 29

A. Navigable Waters: What Is a Navigable Waterway? ..................................................... 30

1. The Federal Test for State Title Definition of Navigability ....................................... 31

2. The Federal Regulatory Authority (Commerce Clause) Definition of Navigability .. 33

3. The California Public Right of Navigation Definition of Navigability ...................... 34

4. Legislative Findings Not Conclusive on State Title or Public Right of Navigation .. 36

5. Floodwaters ................................................................................................................ 37

6. Artificial Waters ......................................................................................................... 38

B. Physical Reach of Public Access and Use Rights: Where Can the Public Go on a

Waterway? ................................................................................................................................ 38

1. Ordinary High Water Mark Determination ................................................................ 39

2. Accretion, Erosion, Submergence, Reliction, and Avulsion – Reach of Access Rights

is Subject to Change.............................................................................................................. 41

3. Trespass ...................................................................................................................... 43

C. Permissible Uses of California’s Navigable Waters: What Can the Public Do on These

Waterways? ............................................................................................................................... 44

1. Waterways that Meet the Federal Title Definition ..................................................... 44

2. Waterways that Satisfy the California Public Right of Navigation Test .................... 45

3. Reasonable Time, Place, and Manner Restrictions .................................................... 46

4. Property Owners May Not Restrict Public Use of Navigable Waters ........................ 48

5. Spanish and Mexican Land Grants ............................................................................. 49

IV. LANDOWNER IMMUNITY AND LIABILITY ............................................................................ 50

A. Private Property .............................................................................................................. 50

B. Public Property and Private Land Trusts........................................................................ 51

CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................................. 52

PREFACE

California is fortunate to have some of the most iconic natural features in the

world, including its many natural waterways that have benefited both its flora

and fauna for millions of years. Likewise, its human inhabitants for more than ten

thousand years have enjoyed the benefits of its rivers, lakes, and oceans. Today,

with nearly 40 million Californians, the need for guidance as to rights of the

public to access and use California’s waterways is clear. This guide is intended to

aid in understanding the rights of the public as well as their limitations.

This guide is the result of years of development by the California Department of

Justice and the California State Lands Commission. A rich history of the

progression of the state’s laws from Gold Rush days to the present cannot be

fully described, but the guide seeks to identify the most important enactments

and judicial decisions that establish the law.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Many thanks to the innumerable Californians who fought to defend the public’s

rights in the Legislature, courts, and elsewhere for generations.

Express thanks are recognized for the researchers, authors, and critics of this

guide. The Attorney General’s Office contributed significantly through its

extensive research and drafting by former Assistant Attorney General Jan

Stevens, Lisa Trankley, Johnathon “Hank” Crook, and Sophie Wenzlau. The State

Lands Commission’s former Chief Counsel and Executive Officer Curtis Fossum

and Attorney Patrick Huber were also substantially involved in the development

of the guide. Finally, the support of the State Lands Commissioners, Lt. Governor

Gavin Newsom, State Controller Betty Yee, and Director of Finance Michael

Cohen, was instrumental in completing the guide and making it a targeted

outcome of strategy 1.3 of the Commission’s Strategic Plan for 2016-

2020. http://www.slc.ca.gov/About/Docs/StrategicPlan.pdf

I. PURPOSE OF THIS GUIDE

California’s spectacular cliff-lined beaches, colorful tide pools, bustling ports, emerald

lakes, and meandering rivers are cherished on the west coast and around the world. Along the

waters of the Pacific Coast, from the Klamath River in the north to the Tijuana Estuary in the

south, and Lake Tahoe and the Colorado River on the east, the state’s navigable waters have

excited and inspired Native Americans and Spanish, English, Russian, and American sailors and

explorers, as well as curious children, adventurous boaters, innovative entrepreneurs, commercial

and recreational fishers, probing scientists, and water sports enthusiasts. These waters facilitate

commerce, navigation, fisheries, and recreation and provide aquatic habitats for some of the

state’s most extraordinary flora and fauna.

In California, members of the public have rights to access and use navigable waters for

many beneficial uses, including, but not limited to, navigation, fishing, and recreation.

These

public rights are expressed in federal law, California’s Act of Admission, the California

Constitution, court opinions, and state statutes. However, the public’s rights to access and use the

state’s navigable waters are sometimes misunderstood.

California public officials are periodically called on to address disputes about the public’s

rights to access and use the state’s navigable waters. These disputes may arise between

recreational water users, such as boaters, fishermen, hunters, shoreline and beach users, and

adjacent private property owners. In this guide, the California State Lands Commission seeks to

inform and clarify, for the public, government officials, and private property owners, the public’s

rights to access and use the state’s navigable waters by summarizing the relevant legal principles.

See Marks v. Whitney, 6 Cal. 3d 251, 259-60 (1971); People ex rel. Baker v. Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d 1040, 1045,

1050 (1971).

To that end, this guide provides an overview of California law governing the public’s access and

use rights. The guide is intended to provide the reader with information that may assist in

determining public access and use rights. It does not address fact-specific issues, apply the law to

any particular dispute, or provide an independent basis for the regulation of any activity.

A. Overview of Public Rights to Access and Use California’s Navigable

Waters

California’s enacted laws and judicial decisions establish public rights to access and use

the state’s navigable waters. Under these laws, the public is entitled to access and enjoy all state

waters “capable of being navigated by oar or motor-propelled small craft.”

Owners of lands

underlying or adjacent to navigable waters are prohibited from interfering with the public’s right

to use such waters.

While several states and European countries recognize custom or common usage as

authorizing passage across certain privately owned property, including to access navigable

waters,

the legal system in California has not recognized such a general right.

The Guide is not intended to be a regulation as set forth in CAL. GOVT. CODE § 11342.600.

Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1050.

See infra Part III; CAL. CONST. art. X, § 4.

For example, several European countries protect the public’s “right to roam” through private property. See

Freedom to Roam (February 17, 2016), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam. See also The Right to

Roam, G

UARDIAN (Jan. 2, 2015), http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/02/country-diary-right-roam

(last visited November 17, 2017). In the United States, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that privately owned

“upland sands must be available for use by the general public under the public trust doctrine.” Raleigh Avenue

Beach Ass'n v. Atlantis Beach Club, Inc., 185 N.J. 40, 59 (2005). The Oregon Supreme Court held that the state’s

custom of allowing public use of dry-sand areas and beaches for recreational purpose was a legitimate source of law.

See State ex rel. Thornton v. Hay, 254 Or. 584, 598-99 (1969). Furthermore, the Oregon Beach Bill (Chapter 601,

Oregon Laws 1967) gave the public the right to free and uninterrupted use of beaches along Oregon’s coast. See

Ocean Shores, O

REGON.GOV, http://www.oregon.gov/oprd/RULES/pages/oceanshores.aspx; see also Oregon’s

Beaches: A Birthright Preserved, O

R. STATE PARKS & RECREATION BRANCH (1977),

http://www.oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=main.loadFile&load=_siteFiles/publications/oregon_s-beaches-

birthright-preserved113001.pdf. “In Texas, public access to Gulf Coast beaches is not just the law, it is a

constitutional right. Walking along the beach in Texas has been a right since Texas was a Republic, and the Texas

Land Commissioner protects this public right for all Texans by enforcing the Texas Open Beaches Act. Under the

Texas Open Beaches Act the public has the free and unrestricted right to access Texas beaches, which are located on

what is commonly referred to as the "wet beach," from the water to the line of mean high tide. The dry sandy area

that extends from the "wet beach” to the natural line of vegetation is usually privately owned but may be subject to

Therefore, the public’s rights in California do not include an across-the-board right to

cross privately-owned lands to access navigable waters.

The government may also limit the

public rights to access and use navigable waters through reasonable time, place, and manner

restrictions.

B. The California State Lands Commission’s Role in Protecting Public Access

Rights

When California became a state, it acquired title to the beds of navigable waterways and

tide and submerged lands within its borders, pursuant to the Equal Footing Doctrine.

since

statehood these lands have been held in trust for the people of California. By the California

Constitution of 1879 the state government was expressly mandated by the people to maintain and

promote access to California’s navigable waterways.

The California State Lands Commission

was established in 1938 to manage these trust lands of approximately 4 million acres of

ungranted tidelands, submerged lands, and the beds of navigable rivers, streams, lakes, bays,

estuaries, inlets, and straits, as well as all the state’s remaining jurisdiction and authority in lands

that have been granted by the state.

These lands, often referred to as “sovereign lands” or

“public trust lands,” stretch from the state’s northern border with Oregon to the southern border

with Mexico and include the tide and submerged lands on the Pacific Coast as well as world-

famous waters, such as Lake Tahoe, Mono Lake, and the Colorado River. The Commission also

the public beach easement. The line of vegetation may shift due to wind, and wave and tidal actions caused by

storms and hurricanes.” http://www.glo.texas.gov/coast/coastal-management/open-beaches/index.html

See infra Part III.C.6 (“Trespass”); but see People v. Wilkinson, 248 Cal. App. 2d Supp. 906 (1967).

See infra Part III.C.3 (“Reasonable Time, Place, and Manner Restrictions”).

Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 44 U.S. 212, 228-229 (1845); Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 258 n.5; Submerged Lands Act of

May 22, 1953, 43 U.S.C. sec. 1311 (a).

Cal. Const. art. X, § 4; Cal. Const. art. I, § 26.

See CAL. PUB. RES. CODE §§ 6216, 6301.

monitors sovereign lands granted in trust to over seventy local jurisdictions and administers

state-owned mineral rights, including lands under the jurisdiction of other state agencies.

The Commission works to protect and enhance these lands and natural resources and

may, where appropriate, issue leases for use or development,

resolve boundaries between

public and private lands,

promote public access,

remove hazards and unauthorized structures

from waterways,

and implement regulatory programs to shield state waters from oil spills

and marine invasive species introductions.

The Commission seeks to secure and safeguard the

public’s access rights to waterways and the coastline and to preserve irreplaceable natural

habitats for wildlife, vegetation, and biological communities. In addition to promoting public

access to and use of state owned waterways, the Commission has participated in litigation to

protect the public’s access and use rights on privately owned recreational navigable waters as

well, e.g. on the South Fork of the American River.

II. PUBLIC ACCESS LAWS

The public right to access and use navigable waters is based on relevant legal precedents.

The concept was an important feature of ancient Roman law and early English common law.

Those rights were confirmed in American common law and have been upheld by the U.S.

Supreme Court.

California, like most other states admitted by Congress, is required to ensure

its navigable waterways remain “forever free” as part of its Act of Admission to the United

See CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 6301.

See e.g. CAL. PUB. RES. CODE §§ 6321, 6501 et seq.

See e.g. CAL. PUB. RES. CODE §§ 6307, 6357.

See e.g. CAL. PUB. RES. CODE §§ 6210.9, 6213.5, 8613, 8625.

See e.g. CAL. PUB. RES. CODE §§ 6216.1, 6224.1, 6302, 6302.1, 6303.1.

See CAL. PUB. RES. CODE §§ 8750, et seq.

See CAL. PUB. RES. CODE §§ 71200, et seq.

People ex rel. Younger v. County of El Dorado, 96 Cal. App. 3d 403 (1979).

See infra Parts II.A–B.

States. In fact, the California Constitution contains several public access and use provisions. To

further those constitutional provisions, the state legislature has enacted statutes that foster those

access and use rights. This part gives a brief overview of those sources of law.

A. Ancient Origins

The concept that the public has rights in navigable waters is deeply rooted in western

civilization’s legal history. In fact, the public right to access and use navigable waters is at least

as old as the Roman Empire.

The Institutes of Justinian, a 6

century text of Roman law, states:

“[b]y the law of nature these things are common to mankind—the air, running water, the sea and

consequently the shores of the sea.”

In ancient Rome, all rivers and ports were public, and the

right of fishing was common to all. Although riverbanks were subject to private ownership, all

people had a right to anchor boats and unload cargo on the shore.

The principle that the public has a right to use navigable waters for fishing, commerce,

and navigation took root in French, Spanish, and Mexican law.

The English common law

recognized the principle as well,

but added a slight twist — the concept of sovereign

ownership.

Simply put, the English Crown held ownership of the beds of navigable waters for

the public good.

The principle was recognized in American law with the states taking

ownership of most navigable waters, and the legal principle came to be known as the public trust

doctrine.

See Joseph L. Sax, The Public Trust Doctrine in Natural Resources Law: Effective Judicial Intervention, 68

ICH. L. REV 471, 475 (1969-70); Jan S. Stevens, The Public Trust: A Sovereign’s Ancient Prerogative Becomes the

People’s Environmental Right, 14

UC DAVIS L. REV. 195, 195 (1980-81).

J. INST. 2.1.1 (T. Cooper trans. & ed., 1841); see also 2 H. BRACTON, ON THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF ENGLAND

39-40 (S. Thorne trans., 1968); Stevens at 197.

J. INST., supra note 13, at 2.1.4; see also Stevens at 196-98.

See Stevens at 196-98.

Sax, supra note 12, at 476-77; Stevens at 197-98.

Stevens at 197-98.

Id.

B. Common Law Public Access and Use Rights

The public interest in accessing and using navigable waters has been recognized in the

English common law in North America since the 1600s.

In the 1821 case of Arnold v. Mundy,

an American court recognized the importance of navigable waters and the public interest in

maintaining them for the public at large.

To that end, the court found that the rights to the beds

of navigable waters, which had been held by the English Crown in trust for public use, passed to

the states as sovereign trustees.

Furthermore, the court held that the sovereign “cannot,

consistently with the principles of the law of nature and the constitution of a well ordered

society, make a direct and absolute grant of the waters of the state, divesting all the citizens of

their common right.”

In the seminal public trust doctrine case Illinois Central Railroad Co. v. Illinois, the

United States Supreme Court elaborated on the rule. The Court held that individual states are

obligated to hold their navigable waters in trust for the people and strictly limited alienability so

that the public “may enjoy the navigation of the waters, carry on commerce over them, and have

the liberty of fishing therein, freed from the obstruction or interference of private parties.”

Furthermore, the Court recognized that “[t]he control of the state for the purposes of the trust can

never be lost, except as to such parcels as are used in promoting the interests of the public

therein, or can be disposed of without any substantial impairment of the public interest in the

lands and waters remaining.”

As a result, the Court held that “[lands under navigable waters]

cannot be placed entirely beyond the direction and control of the state.”

Thus, the Court ruled

Id. at 199.

Stevens at 199.

Arnold, 6 N.J.L. at 78.

See Ill. Cent. R.R. Co. v. Illinois, 146 U.S. 387, 452 (1892).

Id. at 453.

Id. at 454.

that the state’s grant of the rights and title to 1,000 acres of submerged lands within Chicago’s

harbor to a private railroad company exceeded the state’s power over such lands.

Moreover, the

Court held that any such grants by a state are revocable and that states may resume the exercise

of their trust obligations at any time.

The Court’s Illinois Central decision describes the trusteeship responsibility that the state

has to the public. In 1850, California adopted the common law to serve as the basis for its legal

system and, in so doing, adopted common law principles of the public trust doctrine.

As a

result, California courts have held that the state government is obligated to hold certain natural

resources, particularly its sovereign lands, in trust for current and future generations.

The

public trust doctrine generally precludes the state from alienating its trust resources into private

ownership.

Furthermore, the trust requires state officials to protect and ensure the long-term

preservation of those resources for the public benefit.

In most instances, when the state has

conveyed away its fee title to tideland or shoreline areas, the state retains authority and

responsibility to protect the public’s rights in a public trust easement waterward of the high water

mark.

Id. at 454-56.

Id. at 455.

CAL. CIV. CODE § 22.2 (originally 1850 Cal. Stat. ch. 95).

Richard M. Frank, The Public Trust Doctrine: Assessing Its Recent Past & Charting Its Future, 45 UC DAVIS L.

REV. 665, 667 (2012) [hereinafter Public Trust Doctrine].

See Ill. Cent. R.R Co., 146 U.S. at 452-54; Nat’l Audubon Soc’y v. Super. Ct., 33 Cal. 3d 419, 440-41 (1983); see

also Frank, Public Trust Doctrine at 667; Sax at 475-91; Stevens at 210-14.

Nat’l Audubon Soc’y, Cal. 3d at 441 (“Thus, the public trust is more than an affirmation of state power to use

public property for public purposes. It is an affirmation of the duty of the state to protect the people's common

heritage of streams, lakes, marshlands and tidelands, surrendering that right of protection only in rare cases when the

abandonment of that right is consistent with the purposes of the trust.”); San Francisco Baykeeper, Inc. v. California

State Lands Commission, 242 Cal. App. 4th 202 (2015); Frank, Public Trust Doctrine at 667.

; Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 261; State v. Super. Ct. (Lyon) 29 Cal. 3d 210, 232 (1981); Fogerty, 29 Cal. 3d 240, 249

(1981); People ex inf. Webb v. Cal. Fish Co., 166 Cal. 576, 584 (1913); City of Berkeley v. Super. Ct., 26 Cal. 3d

515, 523-24 (1980) (an exception for filled Board of Tide Land Commissioners Lots in San Francisco Bay was

found).

Lastly, the common law doctrines of dedication and prescription have been adapted to

recognize public easements to navigable waters.

The common law public nuisance doctrine has

been used to impose civil and criminal penalties on those who obstruct the navigability of state

waters.

The common law doctrines of dedication, prescription, and nuisance are discussed in

more detail below.

C. Act of Admission

As a condition of statehood in 1850, Congress required California to maintain its

navigable waterways as “common highways, and forever free.”

Similar requirements were

imposed on other newly admitted states. This provision of federal law, based on the Northwest

Ordinance of 1787, set the minimum requirements for the future states’ obligations regarding

public use of navigable waters.

This provision has been implemented by subsequent state

constitutional provisions, statutes, and judicial decisions aimed at protecting the public’s right to

access and use navigable waters.

See infra Part II.F.

People v. Gold Run Ditch & Mining Co., 66 Cal. 138, 147 (1884) (“all unauthorized intrusions upon a water

highway for purposes unconnected with the rights of navigation or passage, are nuisances”); see also C

AL. CIV.

CODE § 3479 (unlawful obstruction of free passage or use of navigable waterway is a nuisance); CAL. HARB. & NAV.

CODE § 131 (obstruction of navigable waterway is misdemeanor); CAL. PENAL CODE § 370; see generally Albert C.

Lin, Public Trust and Public Nuisance: Common Law Peas in A Pod? 45 UC Davis L. Rev. 1075, 1078-88 (2012);

infra Part III.

Act of Sept. 9, 1850, ch. 50, 9 Stat. 452, 453.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787, Art. IV.

Cardwell v. American River Bridge Co., 113 U.S. 205 (1885); CAL. CONST. art X, § 1, § 3, § 4; Richard M. Frank,

Forever Free: Navigability, Inland Waterways, and the Expanding Public Interest, 16 UC Davis L. Rev. 579, 580

(1983).

D. Equal Footing Doctrine

The United States Supreme Court’s adoption of the Equal Footing Doctrine for all states

admitted to the United States serves as the basis for state ownership of California’s navigable

waterways and for the federal test for state title

E. California Constitution

California’s promise to protect the public’s rights is also set forth in its constitution,

statutes, and court decisions. The California Constitution directs the legislature to enact laws that

broadly construe the public right to access and use state waters.

Since 1879, the state

Constitution has provided various additional protections for the public’s right to access and use

the state’s navigable waterways.

For example, Article X, section 4 states:

No individual or partnership, or corporation, claiming or possessing the frontage

or tidal lands of a harbor, bay, inlet estuary, or other navigable water in this State,

shall be permitted to exclude the right of way to such water whenever it is

required for any public purpose, nor to destroy or obstruct the free navigation of

such water; and the Legislature shall enact such laws as will give the most liberal

construction to this provision, so that access to the navigable waters of this State

shall always be attainable for the people thereof.

Additionally, Article I, section 25, adopted in 1910, protects the public’s right to fish upon and

from state public lands and in the waters thereof and restricts the sale of state land without

preserving access rights;

Article X, section 1 sets forth the state’s right of eminent domain to

References to the three tests for navigability (discussed infra) appear in italics.

Pollard’s Lessee v. Hagan, 44 U. S. at 221, 228-229; The Daniel Ball, 77 U.S. 557, 563 (1870).

CAL. CONST. art. X, §4.

See Cnty. of El Dorado, 96 Cal. App. 3d at 406.

CAL. CONST. art X, § 4.

CAL. CONST. art I, § 25. The right to fish has been held by the courts to constitute a privilege and subject to the

state’s police powers to regulate (Matter of Application of Parra, 24 Cal. App. 33 (1914) and Paladini v. Superior

Court, 178 Cal. 369 (1918)); Public lands sold by the state and subject to Article I, § 25 have a reserved right of

access to fish (Attorney General’s Opinion No. NS3679, August 5, 1941); The provision that “no land owned by the

State shall ever be sold or transferred without reserving in the people the absolute right to fish thereupon” was

interpreted by the Attorney General as not applying to all state owned lands only public lands (Attorney General’s

Opinion No. 53-193, October 14, 1953); Atwood v. Hammond, 4 Cal. 2d 31, 39-40 (1935) held that the legislature

has, under certain limited circumstance, the power to eliminate not only public fishing rights, but also the public’s

provide public access to navigable waters;

and Article X, section 3 prohibits the sale of

tidelands within two miles of an incorporated city, county, or town.

F. Statutory Enactments

For over a century, California’s legislature has enacted numerous statutes seeking to

protect and foster public access to and use of navigable waters. The Subdivision Map Act, the

California Coastal Act, provisions of the Streets and Highways Code, and other statutes

incorporate the state’s broad policy in favor of providing public access to navigable waters.

Those laws regulate development, prohibit the sale of certain state owned lands abutting

navigable waters, and require state and local agencies to facilitate public access to those waters.

A brief overview of these statutory enactments is provided below.

1. Prohibitions on the Sale or Elimination of Access

Since 1910, the state has been prohibited from selling lands below the ordinary high

water mark of a navigable waterway.

Furthermore, the state cannot sell lands contiguous to

navigable waters unless convenient access to the waters is provided from a public road or

roads.

If a tract of land owned by the state provides the only convenient means of access to a

navigable waterway, the state, or its successors in interest, must provide an easement for

additional public trust rights of commerce and navigation; State of California v. San Luis Obispo Sportsman’s Assn.,

22 Cal 3d 440, 446-448 (1978) held that lands acquired by the state after 1910, where fishing was compatible with

their use, were also “public lands” and subject to the public’s right to fish. See infra Part III.C.3 (“Reasonable Time,

Place, and Manner Restrictions”) for further discussion.

CAL. CONST. art X, § 1.

CAL. CONST. art X, § 3.

See infra Parts II.E.2–5.

See id.

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 7991. This is in addition to the Constitutional prohibition of selling tidelands within two

miles of a city or town.

Id. § 6210.4.

convenient access to the waterway.

Lastly, municipal governments and local agencies must

ensure that all navigable waters within or adjacent to their borders remain open and free to

navigation and that waterfronts are accessible from nearby public streets and highways.

2. McAteer-Petris Act – San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission

Although Article X, section 4 of the Constitution prohibits any “individual, partnership,

or corporation, claiming or possessing the frontage or tidal lands of a harbor, bay, inlet, estuary,

or other navigable water in this State”

from restricting the right of way to such water whenever

it is required for any public purpose, it took the Legislature 90 years, until 1969, to enact

legislation regulating the use of privately owned land for the purpose of securing public access to

tidal or navigable waters. First, in 1965, the Legislature enacted the McAteer-Petris Act (MPA),

which created the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), to

protect San Francisco Bay from indiscriminate filling and to promote public access.

Then in

1969, the Legislature amended the MPA to, among other things, adopt an confer the status of law

on a new regional plan prepared by BCDC for the San Francisco Bay region, called the San

Francisco Bay Plan (Bay Plan), that was California’s, and the nation’s, first coastal resource

protection plan.

In addition to adopting the Bay Plan, in amending the MPA in 1969, the Legislature

made a finding and declaration “that existing public access to the shoreline and waters of the San

Francisco Bay is inadequate and that maximum feasible public access, consistent with a

Id. § 6210.5; see also id. § 6210.9 (providing California State Lands Commission with authority to “acquire by

purchase, lease, gift, exchange, or, if all negotiations fail, by condemnation, a right-of-way or easement . . . across

privately owned land or other land that it deems necessary to provide access” to public trust lands).

CAL. GOV’T CODE § 39933; see also id. §§ 39901, 54090–54093; Lane v. City of Redondo Beach, 49 Cal. App.

3d 251, 257 (1975).

CAL CONST. art. X, § 4.

CAL. GOV’T CODE § 66600-66663.1.

CAL. GOV’T CODE § 66651 (“This plan and any amendments thereto shall constitute the plan for the [BCDC] to

use to establish policies for reviewing and acting on projects until otherwise ordered by the Legislature.”).

proposed project, should be provided.”

The 1969 Bay Plan implemented this finding by

providing, in Public Access Policy No. 1, that “maximum feasible opportunity for pedestrian

access to the waterfront should be included in every new development in the Bay or on the

shoreline . . . .”

The Bay Plan, as amended through 2011, contains many other policies that

have as their purpose increasing public access to the tidal waters in and tributary to San

Francisco Bay.

The Bay Plan also contains findings and policies concerning the public trust.

Those

findings include but are not limited to: (1) virtually all unfilled tidelands and submerged lands

within BCDC’s jurisdiction are subject to the public trust; (2) title to public trust ownership is

vested in the State Lands Commission or legislative grantees; and (3) the MPA and Bay Plan are

an exercise of the Legislature’s authority over public trust lands and establish policies for

meeting public trust needs. The Bay Plan’s public trust policies provide, in part, that “[w]hen

[BCDC] takes any action affecting lands subject to the public trust, it should assure that the

action is consistent with public trust needs for the area.”

3. Subdivision Map Act

Certain shoreline development cannot interfere with the public’s right to access navigable

waterways. In fact, most shoreline developments must facilitate public access to adjacent

navigable waterways. Accordingly, state legislation imposes certain conditions on development

adjacent to the California coastline and other navigable waterways. The Subdivision Map Act

prohibits the approval of new subdivisions fronting upon navigable waters unless reasonable

CAL. GOV’T CODE § 66602.

Bay Plan (1969), p. 29.

Bay Plan (2012), pp. 66 – 69, Public Access Policies 1 – 14.

Id. at p. 88, Public Trust Findings and Policies.

Id., Public Trust Policies 1.

public access from a public highway to and along the bank of the waterway is provided.

The

local agency (city or county) shall not approve a proposed subdivision adjacent to a navigable

waterway unless a reasonable public access route to and along the waterway is expressly

designated on the tentative or final map.

Furthermore, the route must provide access along the

“‘portion of the bank of the river or stream bordering or lying within the proposed subdivision,’

not simply access to the river itself, or to some other part of the riverbank.”

4. California Coastal Act

One of the goals of the California Coastal Act is to “[m]aximize public access to and

along the coast and maximize public recreational opportunities in the coastal zone.”

Furthermore, “[i]n carrying out the requirement of Section 4 of Article X of the California

Constitution, maximum access, which shall be conspicuously posted, and recreational

opportunities shall be provided for all the people consistent with public safety needs and the need

to protect public rights, rights of private property owners, and natural resource areas from

overuse.”

The Coastal Act provides that “development shall not interfere with the public's right

of access to the sea where acquired through use or legislative authorization, including, but not

limited to, the use of dry sand and rocky coastal beaches to the first line of terrestrial

vegetation.”

Subject to the finding of a rational nexus between the proposed development and

permit conditions implementing public policy

and the degree of private exaction being roughly

proportional to the public benefit,

new coastal development projects must allow for public

See CAL. GOV’T CODE §§ 66478.1–.14.

Id. §§ 66478.5–.6.

Kern River Pub. Access Comm. v. City of Bakersfield, 170 Cal. App. 3d 1205, 1217 (1985) (quoting CAL. GOV’T

CODE § 66478.4).

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 30001.5.

Id. § 30210.

Id. § 30211; see also id. §§ 30210–30214.

Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 483 U.S. 825, 836-37 (1987).

Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 390-92 (1994).

access from the nearest public roadway to the shoreline unless (1) it is inconsistent with public

safety, military security needs, or protection of fragile coastal resources, (2) adequate access

already exists nearby, (3) agriculture would be harmed, or (4) the new development project is

otherwise exempted under the Coastal Act.

However, under this provision, public access will

not be required until a public agency or private association agrees to accept responsibility for

maintenance and liability of the access way.

The California Coastal Commission works in partnership with coastal cities and counties

to plan and regulate land and water use in the state’s coastal zone.

The Coastal Commission

works with 15 counties and 61 cities in the state’s coastal zone to develop and implement their

Local Coastal Programs (LCPs),

which guide coastal planning, land use, and zoning in their

municipalities.

Each LCP must “contain a specific public access component to assure that

maximum public access to the coast and public recreation areas is provided.”

Also, no coastal

development project may begin until a permit is issued by the Coastal Commission or a local

government with a certified LCP.

Given the unique features of California’s numerous coastal

communities, the specific access provisions of each LCP may vary based on the features of each

community. Interested parties should contact their local government for more information about

their LCP’s specific access requirements.

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 30212.

Id.

What We Do, CAL. COASTAL COMM’N, http://www.coastal.ca.gov/whoweare.html (last visited November 17,

2017).

Local Coastal Programs, CAL. COASTAL COMM’N, http://www.coastal.ca.gov/lcps.html (last visited November

17, 2017).

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE §§ 30500–30504.

Id. § 30500.

What We Do.

The Coastal Act served a critical role in Surfrider Foundation v. Martin’s Beach 1, LLC,

a case regarding public access to Martin’s Beach in San Mateo County.

The only practical

means of access to the beach was a private road, which the public had used for years until a new

owner acquired the land and closed the road.

The California Court of Appeal held that the road

closure constituted “development” under the Coastal Act because it resulted in a change in the

intensity of use of water, or access thereto.

The court further held that the private land owner

would need to obtain a coastal development permit from the Coastal Commission before closing

the road.

5. Bridges – Streets and Highways Code

Oftentimes, the most logical location for access to a waterway is where a bridge crosses

it. Kayakers, rafters, and others may legally utilize the public access easements around bridges to

enter and exit navigable waterways.

With those factors in mind, the legislature adopted three

code sections in 1974 to facilitate increased public access around bridges.

All state or county

highway projects and all city street projects that propose construction of a new bridge over a

navigable waterway must consider, and report on, the feasibility of providing public access for

recreational purposes to the waterway before the bridge is constructed.

These code provisions

apply to state agencies and city and county governments that approve bridge construction

projects.

Surfrider Foundation v. Martin’s Beach 1, LLC, 14 Cal. App. 5th 238 (2017).

Id. at 244-45.

Id. at 249-55.

Id.

People v. Sweetser, 72 Cal. App. 3d 278, 284 (1977).

CAL. STS. & HIGH. CODE §§ 84.5, 991, 1809.

Id. §§ 84.5, 991, 1809.

See id.

6. Other Statutory Enactments and Public Agencies that Protect and Promote Public

Access

The legislature’s efforts to implement the state’s constitutional public access principles

also include, but are not limited to:

• Delta Protection Act – Delta Protection Commission

The Delta Protection Act requires the resource management plan for the “primary zone”

of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to provide for reasonable public access to public

lands and waterways.

• San Joaquin River Conservancy Act – San Joaquin River Conservancy

Created in 1992 to serve as the managing entity for the proposed San Joaquin River

Parkway, the Conservancy’s mission includes acquiring land from willing sellers on both

sides of the San Joaquin River between Friant Dam and Highway 99 and managing these

lands for public access and recreation, as well as protecting, enhancing, and restoring

riparian and floodplain habitat.

• Coastal Conservancy

The Coastal Conservancy was created in 1976 to help facilitate publicly beneficial

projects in and around San Francisco Bay and along the California Coast and, today,

includes many watersheds flowing to the Pacific Ocean.

Delta Prot. Comm’n, CA.GOV, http://www.delta.ca.gov (last visited November 17, 2017).

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE §§ 29760–29767.

San Joaquin River Conservancy, CA.GOV, http://www.sjrc.ca.gov (last visited November 17, 2017).

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 32501, et seq.

California Coastal Conservancy, http://www.scc.ca.gov (last visited November 17, 2017).

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 31000, et seq.

• California Tahoe Conservancy

The California Tahoe Conservancy may acquire real property interests on behalf of the

state to protect the natural environment of Lake Tahoe, provide public access or

recreational facilities, preserve wildlife habitats, and provide access to or management of

state lands.

• Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority promotes public access and use of

the Los Angeles River and also holds and manages numerous public access easements to

and along the ocean shoreline in the vicinity of the Santa Monica Mountains.

• Department of Parks and Recreation

100

The Department of Parks and Recreation promotes outdoor recreation and preserves and

protects natural resources through management of the statewide park system. Many

navigable waterways are located within or adjacent to state parks.

101

• The Department of Fish and Wildlife

102

The Department of Fish and Wildlife “has jurisdiction over the conservation, protection,

and management of fish, wildlife, and native plants, and the habitat necessary for

biologically sustainable populations of those species.”

103

Many fish and aquatic wildlife

and plant species are public trust resources that rely on navigable waterways and

Cal. Tahoe Conservancy, http://tahoe.ca.gov (last visited November 17, 2017).

CAL. GOV’T CODE §§ 66905–66908.3.

MOUNTAINS RECREATION & CONSERVATION AUTH., http://www.mrca.ca.gov (last visited November 17, 2017).

Id.

100

Department of Parks and Recreation, CA.GOV, http://www.parks.ca.gov (last visited November 17, 2017).

101

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 500, et seq.; CAL. GOV’T CODE § 54093; see also CAL. HARBORS & NAV. CODE § 68.2 et

seq.

102

Department of Fish and Wildlife, https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/ (last visited November 17, 2017).

103

CAL. FISH & GAME CODE § 1802.

associated habitats subject to public use and access rights. Segments of some navigable

waterways are under the ownership of the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

G. OTHER PUBLIC ACCESS LAWS

Public rights to access navigable waters may arise in a variety of ways. A right of way

may be expressly dedicated to public use, impliedly dedicated through a long period of public

use with the owner’s knowledge, or it may arise by prescriptive use. If an offer of dedication is

accepted by express act or implication, public rights are established.

1. Express Dedication

An express dedication for public access occurs when a landowner intentionally offers to

dedicate his or her land to a public purpose and the offer is accepted by the public.

104

A city or

county, or both, may expressly accept the offer,

105

or the offer may be accepted by public use

over a reasonable period of time for the purpose to which it was dedicated.

106

The dedication

may take the form of a gift, purchase, or condition of entitlement.

107

An expressly dedicated easement provided public access to a navigable waterway in

People v. Sweetser.

108

There, John Sweetser, a kayaker, accessed the Kern River via a county

easement held for public highway purposes.

109

Although there was a fence with “no trespassing”

signs around the easement, Sweetser climbed over it to launch his kayak.

110

He was cited by a

deputy sheriff, charged in a criminal complaint with trespassing, and convicted in the Municipal

104

Hanshaw v. Long Valley Rd. Ass’n, 116 Cal. App. 4th 471, 477-83 (2004); McKinney v. Ruderman, 203 Cal.

App. 2d 109, 115 (1962).

105

See, e.g., CAL. GOV’T CODE § 7050.

106

Hanshaw, 116 Cal. App. 4th at 477-83; McKinney, 203 Cal. App. 2d at 116; Hall v. Fairchild-Gilmore-Wilton

Co., 66 Cal. App. 615, 623 (1924).

107

See 6 CAL. REAL EST. §§ 15:43, 26:3–:25 (4th ed. 2015).

108

Sweetser, 72 Cal. App. 3d 278

109

Id. at 282.

110

Id.

Court.

111

However, the Fifth District Court of Appeal reversed his conviction because Sweetser

“was walking within the perimeters of a county easement conveyed for ‘public highway

purposes’ and . . . was acting within the scope of the easement.”

112

Since launching a small craft

into the navigable waterway was a permissible use of the easement and there was no evidence

that the county had restricted the easement, Sweetser’s conviction was reversed.

113

Thus, the

public, unless restricted by reasonable government action, may use expressly dedicated road and

highway easements to access navigable waters.

114

2. Implied Dedication

Under the doctrine of implied dedication, continued public use of private land for more

than five years with full knowledge of the owner, without asking or receiving permission, and

without objection, gives rise to an easement to navigable waters.

115

The California Supreme

Court found that an informal or implied dedication of land may occur by “simply setting it apart

or devoting it to that use.”

116

Furthermore, “[t]o constitute a dedication at common law no

particular formality of either word or act is required.”

117

Thus, the California Supreme Court in

1982 ruled that the use of a street by the public for a “reasonable length of time, where the

intention of the owner to dedicate is clearly shown, is sufficient, without any specific action by

the municipal authorities, either by resolution or by repairs or improvements.”

118

Subsequent decisions held that in dedication by acquiescence of the owner, for a less than

five year period, actual intent of the owner must be shown.

119

However, for periods in excess of

111

Id. at 282-83

112

Id. at 283, 286.

113

Id. at 283.

114

Id. at 283-84. See infra Part III. C. 3 (“Reasonable Time, Place, and Manner Restrictions”).

115

Gion v. City of Santa Cruz, 2 Cal. 3d 29, 38 (1970).

116

Smith v. City of San Luis Obispo, 95 Cal. 463, 466 (1892).

117

Id.

118

Id. at 470; see also Brumbaugh v. Cnty. of Imperial, 134 Cal. App. 3d 556, 563 (1982).

119

Union Transp. Co. v. Sacramento Cnty., 42 Cal. 2d 235, 240-241(1954),

five years, if the public has engaged in “long-continued adverse use,” the question of intent shifts

from the owner to that of the public.

120

Parties seeking to establish that a tract of land has been

impliedly dedicated must show that “persons used the property believing the public had a right to

such use.”

121

The public use need not be “adverse” to the interest of the owner in the same way

as the word is used in adverse possession cases.

122

In fact, the landowner's intention is not

necessarily relevant as to whether there has been an implied dedication.

123

Litigants need to

show only that the land was used as if it were public land.

124

If a court finds that the public has used land without objection or interference for more

than five years, it does not need to make a separate finding of “adversity” to find implied

dedication.

125

If the land is a beach or shoreline area, litigants should show that the land was

used as if it were a public recreation area.

126

Similarly, if a road is involved, the litigant must

show that it was used as if it were a public road.

127

Once a tract of land has been impliedly

dedicated for public purposes, the fee owner is precluded from reasserting an exclusive right

over the parcel.

128

Evidence that the users looked to a government agency for maintenance of the land is

significant in establishing an implied dedication to the public.

129

For instance, in Gion v. City of

Santa Cruz, the California Supreme Court held that a parking lot maintained by the city and used

by the public for many years had been impliedly dedicated to public use.

130

The evidence in

120

Gion, 2 Cal. 3d. at 38.

121

Gion, 2 Cal.3d. at 39.

122

Id.

123

Bess v. Cnty. of Humboldt, 3 Cal. App. 4th 1544, 1551 (1992).

124

Gion, 2 Cal. 3d at 39.

125

Id.

126

Id.

127

Id.

128

Friends of the Trails v. Blasius, 78 Cal. App. 4th 810, 820 (2000).

129

Gion, 2 Cal. 3d at 39.

130

See id. at 34-36.

Gion was that the public had used the lot for parking for 60 years.

131

Furthermore, the city had

paved the level area, maintained trash receptacles on the land, and cleaned it after weekends of

heavy use.

132

In the companion case of Dietz v. King, the court considered whether a road leading to

the beach had been impliedly dedicated.

133

The public had used the road for many years for

camping, picnicking, collecting and cutting driftwood, and fishing.

134

Large groups of Native

Americans had used the beach in summer months, camping there for weeks at a time.

135

The

owners of the land, for the most part, did not object to public use of it.

136

Therefore, the court

held it had been impliedly dedicated to public use.

137

3. Implied Dedication in Coastal Areas

The doctrine of implied dedication has been most effective in coastal areas. In its 1970

Gion decision, the state Supreme Court cited numerous cases, the California Constitution

(Article X, sec. 4), and statutes that indicate the state’s “strong policy . . . of encouraging public

use of shoreline recreational areas.”

138

Consequently, the court reasoned that the “intensification

of land use combined with the clear public policy in favor of encouraging and expanding public

access to and use of shoreline areas” required it to hold that the shoreline area at issue in Gion

had been impliedly dedicated to public use.

139

Despite the state’s strong policy promoting public

131

Id.

132

Id.

133

Id. at 36.

134

Id. at 36-37.

135

Id.

136

Id. at 37.

137

Id. at 43.

138

Id. at 42.

139

Id. at 42-43.

access and use of coastal waterways, costly legal disputes between coastal property owners and

public access advocates still arise.

4. Restrictions on Implied Dedication

In 1972, the Legislature limited the implied dedication doctrine in several ways. It

amended Civil Code section 813 to permit landowners to record a notice of consent for public

use for a described purpose.

140

Such a notice is conclusive evidence that later uses of the land are

permissive, thus precluding the creation of non-revocable public use rights through implied

dedication.

141

Also in 1972, the Legislature enacted Civil Code section 1009, which states that public

use of private property after the section’s effective date (March 4, 1972) shall never ripen to

confer vested rights under the implied dedication doctrine unless either (1) a government entity

expended public funds to improve or maintain the land for public use for at least five years or (2)

the land is within 1000 yards of coastal waters.

142

Even then, implied dedication will not be

found if the owner posts signs granting the public permission to pass under Civil Code section

1008, records a notice under section 813, or enters into a written agreement with a federal, state,

or local agency providing for public use of the land.

143

Those provisions severely restrict implied dedications for public access to waterways

based on public use occurring after March 4, 1972 —section 1009’s effective date.

Consequently, implied dedication will not be found unless a government entity improved or

maintained the alleged public access, and public access to the waterway can be demonstrated by

140

See CAL. CIV. CODE § 813.

141

See id.

142

Id. § 1009.

143

Id.; the California Supreme Court on June 15, 2017 held that Civil Code section 1009 also restricts non-coastal

access implied dedication claims for non-recreational road access (Sher v. Burke, No. S230104).

evidence of public use and other acts occurring before March 4, 1972. Such evidence may

include testimony from members of the public who used the land, from owners during the

pertinent period, and perhaps documentary evidence.

144

5. Prescriptive Use

A prescriptive easement, which is a right to use someone else’s private property, can be

acquired by using another’s property for a prescribed period of time.

145

In order to establish an

easement based on prescriptive use, the use must be “consistent and constant . . . for the

prescriptive period without material or substantial deviation in the location.”

146

The party

seeking to establish an easement by prescription must show continuous, uninterrupted use of the

easement for at least five years and that the use has been open, notorious, hostile, and adverse to

the owner.

147

A prescriptive right cannot be established on property owned by a federal, state, or

local government.

148

While the prescription doctrine most commonly applies to individuals

seeking easement rights, it was used in Fogerty II to determine the ordinary high water mark of

Lake Tahoe.

149

6. Private Fee Title Owners May Not Prevent Public Access and Use on Lands and

Waters Subject to a Public Trust Easement

In the last half of the 19th Century, the state conveyed its fee title in certain sovereign

public trust tidal and non-tidal shore lands lying between the ordinary high and low water marks

to private parties, subject to the public trust easement.

150

Owners of such lands may not prevent

144

Gion, 2 Cal. 3d at 34-35.

145

6 CAL. REAL EST. § 16:1 (4th ed. 2015).

146

Id. § 15:53.

147

Fogerty v. State, 187 Cal. App. 3d 224, 238 (1986) (“Fogerty II”); Warsaw v. Chicago Metallic Ceilings, Inc., 35

Cal. 3d 564, 570 (1984); see also C

AL. CIV. PROC. CODE § 321; 6 CAL. REAL EST. § 15:29 (4th ed. 2015).

148

6 CAL. REAL EST. § 15:29 (4th ed. 2015).

149

Fogerty II, 187 Cal. App. 3d at 238-42.

150

See Land Classifications, CAL. STATE LANDS COMM’N, http://www.slc.ca.gov/Info/Land_Class.html (last visited

November 17, 2017).

the public from using portions of their property that are subject to the public trust easement.

151

Furthermore, the state retains the right to enter upon, possess, and control how those lands are

used to ensure the preservation of public trust uses.

152

The state may exercise the easement and

take lawful possession of such property,

153

subject to the fee title owner’s right to just

compensation for lawful improvements taken by the state.

154

Fee owners of these tidal and non-tidal shore lands who have lawfully constructed docks,

piers, and other structures on their property in areas where the public trust easement exists may

continue to use those amenities unless the state determines that their use is inconsistent with the

public trust.

155

The state may make changes and improvements necessary to fulfill public trust

purposes even if those actions cause harm to the property.

156

However, the state must

compensate property owners if it removes any lawfully constructed structures or retakes absolute

title to the land.

157

In sum, owners of such lands may not impede the public’s access or use rights

and must yield to the state’s efforts to advance public trust purposes and values.

158

The filling of

or artificial accretion to these lands does not dispossess the state or public of its property

151

Forestier v. Johnson, 164 Cal. 24, 34 (1912) (“Whenever a navigable channel or navigable water may extend over

any tideland granted by the state under these statutes the public right of navigation therein is not destroyed, the

purchaser takes subject thereto, and he has no right to enjoin or prevent any citizen from exercising the public rights

incident thereto.”).

152

Summa Corp. v. California ex rel. State Lands Comm’n, 466 U.S. 198, 205 (1984) (“Through this easement, the

State has an overriding power to enter upon the property and possess it, to make physical changes in the property,

and to control how the property is used.”); Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 259-260; Cal. Fish Co., 166 Cal. at 598 (“. . . the

patents under which the several defendants claim tidelands are subject to the constitutional restriction, and do not

deprive the state of its power as sovereign trustee to adapt and improve these lands for navigation as it may see fit.”).

153

See Cal. Fish Co., 166 Cal. at 599; see also Newcomb v. City of Newport Beach, 7 Cal. 2d 393, 403 (1936);

Fogerty, 29 Cal. 3d at 249 (1981

154

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 6312 (“Neither the state, nor any political subdivision thereof, shall take possession of

lawful improvements on validly granted or patented tidelands or submerged lands without the tender of a fair and

just compensation for such lawful improvements as may have been made in good faith by the grantee or patentee or

his successors in interest pursuant to any express or implied license contained in the grant or patent.”).

155

Fogerty, 29 Cal. 3d at 249; Coburn v. Ames, 52 Cal. 385, 397 (1877).

156

Fogerty, 29 Cal. 3d at 249; Colberg, Inc. v. State ex rel. Dep’t of Pub. Works, 67 Cal. 2d 408, 420 (1967); Cal.

Fish Co., 166 Cal. at 599.

157

Fogerty, 29 Cal. 3d at 249; Cal. Fish Co., 166 Cal. at 612-13; CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 6312.

158

State v. Super. Ct. (Lyon), 29 Cal. 3d 210, 232 (1981).

interests.

159

Finally, the state may also use its eminent domain power to acquire access to

navigable waters.

160

III. NAVIGABLE WATERS

Under California law, the public has a general legal right to access and enjoy California’s

navigable waterways at any point below the high water mark.

161

While there are several

navigability tests under state and federal laws, a waterway is “navigable” for purposes of the

California public right of navigation if it is “capable of being navigated by oar or motor-

propelled small craft.”

162

Tidelands, whether or not they can support small craft, and submerged lands, collectively

sometimes referred to as sovereign or public trust lands, are also regarded as navigable.

163

Generally, the public has a legal right to access and use such waters for commerce, navigation,

fishing, and water-related uses including recreation.

164

The public’s right to access and use California’s navigable waters is not, in general,

affected by who owns the waterway’s bed and banks, be it a government entity or a private

party.

165

California’s public right of navigation applies to waterways where the underlying land

159

State ex rel. State Lands Comm’n. v. Superior Court (Lovelace), 11 Cal. 4

50, 66-80 (1995); California ex rel.

State Lands Comm’n. v. U.S., 457 U.S. 273, 277 (1982); But see Board of Tide Land Commissioners Lots in San

Francisco Bay filled prior to February 22, 1980 - City of Berkeley v. Super. Ct., 26 Cal. 3d 515, 534. (1980).

160

CAL. CONST. art. X, § 1; CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 6210.9.

161

Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1050.

162

Ibid.

163

Cal. Fish Co., 166 Cal. at 596; see also Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 259; Phillips Petroleum v. Mississippi, 484 U.S.469

(1988)

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 6301 and infra Part III. C. 1.

164

Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 259; see also Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1050.

165

See Bohn v. Albertson, 107 Cal. App. 2d 738 (1951); Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1050 (the question of title to the

riverbed is not relevant); see also Hitchings, 55 Cal. App. 3d at 571 (“The ownership of the bed is not determinative

of public navigational rights, nor vice-versa.”); Forestier v. Johnson, 164 Cal. 24, 34 (1912) (“Whenever a navigable

channel or navigable water may extend over any tideland granted by the state under these statutes the public right of

navigation therein is not destroyed, the purchaser takes subject thereto, and he has no right to enjoin or prevent any

citizen from exercising the public rights incident thereto.”).

is currently or was formerly state-owned and also to waterways where the underlying land is

privately owned and has never been state owned.

166

In fact, private landowners may not interfere

with the public use of recreationally navigable waters on their property.

167

The unlawful

obstruction of a navigable waterway is a public nuisance that may be enjoined by a court.

168

A. Navigable Waters: What Is a Navigable Waterway?

The word “navigable” is a legal term of art with multiple definitions under federal and

state law, including the federal test for state title, federal regulatory authority, and California

public right of navigation definitions.

169

Courts apply these three definitions of “navigability” in

different contexts: (1) courts use the federal test for state title definition of navigability to

determine whether California or other states gained title to certain lands at statehood; (2) courts

use the federal regulatory authority definition to determine whether the federal government can

exercise its Commerce Clause powers

170

to regulate waters of the United States; and (3) courts

use the California public right of navigation definition to determine, as a matter of state law,

whether the public has a right to access and use a state waterway for water-related and water-

dependent activities.

171

While the public has a broad right to access and use any waterway that

meets the California public right of navigation definition of navigability, the public has more

166

See Id.

167

See Hitchings, 55 Cal. App. 3d at 568 (“In California, if a stream is navigable under the state definition, ‘a public

right of navigation exists and any obstruction of a navigable stream is a public nuisance,’” citing CAL. CIV. CODE

§ 3479).

168

CAL. CONST. art. X, § 4; see also CAL. CIV. CODE § 3479 (unlawful obstruction of a navigable waterway is a

nuisance); C

AL. PENAL CODE § 370; CAL. HARB. & NAV. CODE § 131 (unlawful obstruction of navigable waterway

is a misdemeanor); Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d 1040.

169

Richard M. Frank, Forever Free: Navigability, Inland Waterways, and the Expanding Public Interest, 16 UC

DAVIS L. REV. 579, 583-90 (1983) [hereinafter Forever Free].

170

U.S. CONST. art. I, Sec. 8, clause 3.

171

See Frank, Forever Free, supra at 589-590

extensive rights and interests on waterways that also meet the federal test for state title definition

of navigability since the lands involved are subject to a state-owned property interest.

172

Overall, the California public right of navigation definition of navigability is broader in

its area of impact, although not broader in the public rights it protects, than the federal

definitions; a waterway that is non-navigable under either of the federal definitions can

nevertheless be navigable under the California definition.

173

By using criteria less restrictive than

those applied under the federal tests, the California definition of navigability embraces a broader

scope of waterways, including minor lakes and streams as well as artificially created

waterways.

174

Under the California definition, a waterway is navigable if it is “capable of being

navigated by oar or motor-propelled small craft.”

175

Courts and attorneys have, at times, conflated the federal test for state title, federal

regulatory authority, and California public right of navigation definitions of navigability.

Although this guide deals primarily with the California public right of navigation definition, it

provides a brief discussion of the three definitions of navigability to explain the differences

between each one.

1. The Federal Test for State Title Definition of Navigability

Under the federal test for state title definition of navigability, a waterway is navigable if

it was susceptible to commercial navigation when California became a state.

176

172

See Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 259-61; see also Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1050; Cal. Fish Co., 166 Cal. at 588; Summa,

466 U.S. at 204-05.

173

See Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1045; see also Shively v. Bowlby, 152 U.S. 1, 26 (1894).

174

See Frank, Forever Free, supra at 589-590.

175

Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1050; See infra comparison of different legal tests of navigability below.

176

Id.

Upon admission to the Union in 1850, California gained the same rights, sovereignty, and

jurisdiction as the original thirteen states pursuant to the Equal Footing Doctrine.

177

These rights

included ownership of the bed and banks of its tidal and “navigable” waters.

178

The U.S.

Supreme Court first articulated the federal title definition in The Daniel Ball:

Those rivers must be regarded as public navigable rivers in law which are navigable in

fact. And they are navigable in fact when they are used, or susceptible of being used, in

their ordinary condition, as highways for commerce, over which trade and travel are or

may be conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on water.

179

Under the federal test for state title definition, navigability depends on susceptibility for use, not

on actual historical use.

180

The susceptibility for use did not need to be year-round or continuous,

as seasonal impediments occur in many state-owned navigable waterways.

181

As a result,

substantial historical investigation of the waterway is often helpful to determine whether it was

177

See Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 551 (1981) (“As a general principle, the Federal Government holds

[land under navigable water] in trust for future States, to be granted to such States when they enter the Union and

assume sovereignty on an “equal footing” with the established States.”); see also Utah v. United States, 403 U.S. 9,

10 (1971) (“The operation of the ‘equal footing’ principle has accorded newly admitted State the same property

interests in submerged lands as was enjoyed by the Thirteen Original States as successors to the British Crown.”);

Mumford v. Wardwell, 73 U.S. 423, 436 (1867) (Under the Equal Footing Doctrine “the new states since admitted

have the same rights, sovereignty and jurisdiction...as the original states possess within their respective borders”).

178

See Cal. Fish Co., 166 Cal. at 584 (“‘When the revolution took place, the people of each state became themselves

sovereign, and . . . hold the absolute right to all their navigable waters . . . for their common use.’”); see also

Pollard’s lessee v. Hagan, 44 U.S. 212, 229 (1845) (“Then to Alabama belong the navigable waters, and soils under

them, in controversy in this case, subject to the rights surrendered by the Constitution to the United States; and no

compact that might be made between her and the United States could diminish or enlarge these rights.”).

179

The Daniel Ball, 77 U.S. 557, 563 (1870). see also PPL Mont., LLC v. Montana, 132 S.Ct. 1215, 1228 (2012)

(“The Daniel Ball formulation has been invoked in considering the navigability of waters for purposes of assessing

federal regulatory authority under the Constitution, and the application of specific federal statutes, as to the waters

and their beds.”).

180

See United States v. Utah, 283 U.S. 64, 82, 86-87 (1931) (“The question of that susceptibility in the ordinary

condition of the rivers, rather than of the mere manner or extent of actual use, is the crucial question.”); see also

United States v. Holt State Bank, 270 U.S. 49, 56 (1926) (“. . . navigability does not depend on the particular mode

in which such use is or may be had—whether by steamboats, sailing vessels or flatboats—nor on an absence of

occasional difficulties in navigation, but on the fact, if it be a fact, that the stream in its natural and ordinary

condition affords a channel for useful commerce.”); The Montello, 87 U.S. 430, 441 (1874) (“The capability of use

by the public for purposes of transportation and commerce affords the true criterion of the navigability of a river,

rather than the extent and manner of that use.”); The Daniel Ball, 77 U.S. at 563.

181

Utah, 283 U.S. at 84-87 A particular waterway may be navigable for title purposes despite occasional

impediments such as sand or gravel bars, riffles, or occasional log jams. But see PPL Mont., LLC v. Montana, 132

S. Ct. 1215 (2012), where the Great Falls and other falls were a substantial impediment to navigation and therefore

those segments of the rivers being litigated were not navigable for state title purposes.

susceptible to commercial navigation at statehood.

182

Note, however, that navigability is

determined on a segment-by-segment basis. One navigable segment of a waterway does not

render the entire waterway navigable. Some of California’s rivers, for example, are navigable far

downstream but are not navigable at the rivers’ origins.

183

As noted above, the public, as beneficial holder of a property interest, has additional

rights and protections on waterways and over lands that meet the federal test for state title

definitions of navigability than on waterways that are in private ownership and meet only the

California public right of navigation test.

184

Since California holds title or reserved property

rights to waterways that were susceptible to commercial navigation at statehood, the state

government has more power to control those waterways and lands.

185

In Marks v. Whitney, the

California Supreme Court noted that the state holds the power to possess and improve waterways

that were commercially navigable when California joined the Union in 1850, whether or not title

has since passed to a private party.

186

According to the court, the state may possess and improve

these waters for the “preservation and advancement of public uses.”

187

2. The Federal Regulatory Authority (Commerce Clause) Definition of Navigability

Courts use the federal regulatory authority definition of navigability to determine

whether the federal government has authority under the Commerce Clause of the United States

182

See Utah v. United States, 403 U.S. 9, 11 (1971) (“There were, for example, nine boats used from time to time to

haul cattle and sheep from the mainland to one of the islands . . . . The lake was used as a highway and that is the

gist of the federal test.”); see also Utah, 283 U.S. at 82.

183

PPL Mont., LLC v. Montana, 132 S.Ct. at 1229-33.

184

See Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 259-61; see also Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1050; Cal. Fish Co., 166 Cal. at 588.

185

See Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 259-60; see also Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1050; Cal. Fish Co., 166 Cal. at 588.

186

See Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 260-61 (“The power of the state to control, regulate, and utilize its navigable waterways

and the lands lying beneath them, when acting within the terms of the trust, is absolute.”); see also Cal. Fish Co.,

166 Cal. 588 (“The state has power to enter upon waterways that were commercially navigable at statehood “and

make such erections thereon, or changes therein, as it may find necessary or advisable to adapt the premises for use

in navigation, and provide access thereto for that purpose, or in furtherance thereof.”)

187

Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 261.

Constitution to regulate the commercial use of a California waterway.

188

California courts do not

use the federal regulatory authority definition of navigability to determine whether the public

has a right to access and use a California waterway for recreation.

189

The federal regulatory authority definition of navigability is similar to the federal test for

state title definition of navigability, with three exceptions. First, navigability for regulatory

purposes can arise after statehood.

190

Second, reasonable improvements to enhance navigation in

the waterway may be considered in determining navigability.

191

Third, the waterway must serve

as a link in interstate or foreign commerce to be navigable.

192

The Rivers and Harbors Act of

1899 is an example of the federal government exercising this authority.

193

3. The California Public Right of Navigation Definition of Navigability

A waterway is “navigable” for purposes of the California public right of navigation test if

it is “capable of being navigated by oar or motor-propelled small craft.”

194

The California Court

of Appeal explained this test in People ex rel. Baker v. Mack:

The streams of California are a vital recreational resource of the state. The

modern determinations of the California courts, as well as those of several of the

states, as to the test of navigability can well be restated as follows: members of

the public have the right to navigate and to exercise the incidents of navigation in

a lawful manner at any point below high water mark on waters of this state which

are capable of being navigated by oar or motor-propelled small craft.

195

188

See Frank, Forever Free at 587-88; see also U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 3 (Congress shall have power “to regulate

Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”).

189

See Frank, Forever Free at 591.

190

See United States v. Appalachian Elec. Power Co., 311 U.S. 377, 407 (1940) (overruled on other grounds by

Rapanos v. U.S., 547 U.S. 715 (2006)); see also Frank, Forever Free at 587-88.

191

Appalachian Elec. Power Co., 311 U.S. at 407.

192

Id. at 404, 407-09.

193

Act of March 3, 1899, ch. 425, § 9, 30 Stat. 1151; see also 33 U.S.C. § 407 (2012).

194

Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1050.

195

Id.

California waters suitable for navigation by small craft can include rivers, streams, sloughs,

lakes, and artificial waterways.

196

In 1971, the state’s Third District Court of Appeal reaffirmed in Baker v. Mack that the

public has a specific right to use California waterways that meet the California public right of

navigation definition even if those waterways do not meet the federal test for state title definition

of navigability.

197

For example, the public has a legal right to access and use a currently flooded

tract of land that is capable of supporting small craft today, even if that land was not flooded and

not commercially navigable at statehood.

198

Under the California public right of navigation definition, navigability is a context-

specific question of fact.

199

The duration of navigability in fact required to make a waterway

navigable in law cannot be stated with precision.

200

Waters need not be navigable year-round to

be navigable for public use or access purposes.

201

For instance, in Hitchings v. Del Rio Woods

Recreation & Park District, a stretch of the Russian River that was navigable in fact for nine

months of the year was deemed navigable in law.

202

The court’s rationale was to uphold any

period sufficient to make the river “suitable, useful, and valuable as a public recreational

196

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Superior Court, 145 Cal. App. 3d 253 (1983); 68 Op. Cal. Att’y. Gen. 268 (1985);

see also infra Part III.A.6 (discussing artificial waters).

197

Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1045, 1051.

198

See Bohn, 107 Cal. App. 2d at 749 (In California, the public can legally use navigable floodwaters on private

lands unless and until the flooded land is reclaimed by the landowner, provided the public can access the

floodwaters without trespassing on private property).

199

Hitchings, 55 Cal. App. 3d at 565 (“Navigability is essentially a question of fact, and must in each case be

determined on the factual circumstances of the particular waterway.”).

200

Id. at 570 (“The duration of navigability in fact required to make a stream navigable in law cannot be stated with

precision; the characteristics of the stream and circumstances of its suitability for public use will vary from case to

case, and remain a factual question,”); see also 68 Op. Cal. Att’y Gen. 268 (1985).

201

Hitchings, 55 Cal. App. 3d at 571; see also Bess v. Cnty. of Humboldt, 3 Cal. App. 4th 1544, 1549 n2 (1992)

(explaining that the fact that river is only navigable during certain seasons does not make it non-navigable); Bohn,

107 Cal. App. 2d at 749 (floodwaters can be legally navigable); see also Chowchilla Farms v. Martin, 219 Cal. 1,

36-38 (1933); Miller & Lux v. Madera Canal and Irrigation Co., 155 Cal. 59, 76 (1909); Mammoth Gold Dredging

Co. v. Forbes, 39 Cal. App. 2d 739, 752 (1940).

202

Hitchings, 55 Cal. App. 3d at 570-71.

highway.”

203

The duration of navigability required to make a waterway suitable, useful, and

valuable as a public recreational highway depends on the unique circumstances of each case.

204

Waterways containing natural and artificial obstructions may be navigable under the

California public right of navigation definition of navigability.

205

In Bohn v. Albertson, the court

held that a waterway was navigable despite the fact that it contained obstructions such as tree

trunks, farm machinery, and shallow areas.

206

4. Legislative Findings Not Conclusive on State Title or Public Right of Navigation

In 1894, Congress adopted provisions that regulated the use of drawbridges over

navigable waters.

207

Prior to that Congressional action, numerous rail lines were built across

California’s waterways in the 1860s and 1870s. However, sailboat and steamboat traffic required

bridges that would not obstruct navigation.

208

In its first set of codified laws enacted in 1872,

California established the “head of navigation” on numerous waterways to identify locations

where drawbridges would be required and to allow fixed structures above certain described

203

Id.

204

Id. at 570; see also California Whitewater Guide to Rafting and Kayaking, CALIFORNIAWHITEWATER.COM,

http://www.californiawhitewater.com/rivers/ (last visited November 17, 2017) (providing seasonal flow information

for California rivers).

205

Bohn, 107 Cal. App. 2d at 746-47 (“It is clear that in spite of obstructions such as tree trunks, farm machinery

and low spots, the waters are navigable.”)

206

Id.

207

33 U.S.C. § 499 (2012).

208

1872 CAL. POLITICAL CODE §§ 2872, 2875, 2877; see also Cardwell v. American River Bridge Co., 113 U.S. 205

(1885) and Cardwell v. Sacramento Cnty., 79 Cal. 347, 348-49 (1889) (“[S]ection 2875 of the Political Code

expressly prohibits the construction of bridges across navigable streams without draws, or so as to obstruct

navigation, and section 3479 of the Civil Code provides that anything which obstructs the free passage or use in the

customary manner of any navigable river or stream is a nuisance. . . .”) The United States Supreme Court decision

stated the American River was navigable by small steamers to the city of Folsom, but the Act of Admission did not

prevent the State from determining where fixed bridges were authorized; the subsequent California Supreme Court

case held that the river was not listed by the Legislature as navigable and therefore bridges without draws could be

constructed.

locations.

209

Those laws have been amended from time to time and are now found in the

California Harbors and Navigation Code.

210

However, the legislature need not designate a waterway as navigable for the waterway to

be legally “navigable” under the federal test for state title, federal regulatory authority test, or

California public right of navigation test.

211

The test for public recreational navigability in

California is not whether a waterway is designated as navigable but whether the waterway is

navigable in fact by small craft.

212

The Baker court held that “the failure of the legislature to

designate Fall River in the list of navigable waters in Harbors and Navigation Code sections

101–106, is of no consequence.”

213

As the Indiana Supreme Court recognized, “nature is

competent . . . to make a navigable river without the help of the legislature.”

214

5. Floodwaters

In California, the public can legally use navigable floodwaters on private lands until the

flooded land is reclaimed by the landowner, provided the public accesses the floodwaters without

trespassing.

215

While flooded land is navigable, the public has a right to fish and navigate over

it.

216

Landowners who wish to reclaim flooded land on their property must abide by pertinent

federal, state, and local regulations.

209

1872 Cal. Political Code §§ 2872, 2875, 2877.

210

See CAL. HARB. & NAV. CODE § 101.

211

See Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1048-49; see also Newcomb v. City of Newport Beach, 7 Cal. 2d 393, 399 (1936)

(Newport Bay was a navigable waterway even though it was not so designated in the code); People v. Gold Run

Ditch & Mining Co., 66 Cal. 138, 151 (1884) (state legislature may not divest the people of their rights in the state’s

navigable waters); 68 Op. Cal. Att’y Gen. 268 (1985) (“In Harbors and Navigation Code sections 101–106, the

Legislature has designated certain waterways as being navigable . . . [this] does not, however, preclude other waters

from being found to be navigable in law or in fact.”).

212

Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1048-49.

213

Id. at 1048-49.

214

Martin v. Bliss, 5 Blackf. 35, 35 (1838).

215

Bohn, 107 Cal. App. 2d at 749 (1951); see also CAL. CIVIL CODE § 1015.

216

Id.

6. Artificial Waters

The public has a right to use artificially created waters that can support a small craft and

be accessed legally.

217

In Golden Feather Community Association v. Thermalito Irrigation

District, the court noted that artificial waters can be navigable under California’s small craft test

because “a waterway need only be usable for pleasure boating to be considered navigable” for

purposes of public access.

218

Dredged lands may also be subject to the public right of

navigation.

219

B. Physical Reach of Public Access and Use Rights: Where Can the Public Go

on a Waterway?

Generally, the state holds in trust “all land below tide water, and below [the] ordinary

high-water mark” on tidal lands.

220

On non-tidal waters that meet the federal test for state title,

private parties who own land abutting a navigable waterway generally hold title to the ordinary

low water mark, and the state holds title to the beds and banks below the low water mark.

221

However, the state retains a public trust easement over the lands lying between the ordinary high

and low water marks on waterways that satisfy the title test, and riparian owners may not utilize

those lands in any manner that is “incompatible with the public’s interest in the property.”

222

The

217

See Pacific Gas & Electric, 145 Cal. App. 3d 253 at 258 (“The public right of access to navigable streams is of

constitutional origin.”)

218

Golden Feather Comty. Ass’n v. Thermalito Irrigation Dist., 209 Cal. App. 3d 1276, 1281 n.2 (1989) (“In their

letters to the court following publication of our original opinion, the Attorney General's Office and the State Water

Resources Control Board point out that a waterway need only be usable for pleasure boating to be considered

navigable for purposes of the public trust doctrine, and they assert that it is highly unlikely that the reservoir behind

Concow Dam is not navigable in this sense. Nevertheless, the question of navigability is a factual question. The

parties to this litigation agreed that the case does not involve a navigable waterway. Naturally, such a concession

binds only the parties to this litigation and those in privity with them. But in resolving the dispute between the

parties we are not free to disregard their concessions.”)

219

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 7552.5.

220

See CAL. CIV. CODE § 670.

221

See id. § 830.

222

See State v. Super. Ct. (Lyon), 29 Cal. 3d 210, 226, 232 (1981); Fogerty, 29 Cal. 3d at 249 (1981); Marks, 6 Cal.

3d at 259.

State Lands Commission is authorized to establish the ordinary high and low water marks of any

swamp, overflowed, marsh, tide, or submerged lands of this State by agreement or action to quiet

title.

223

Boundary determination is complex, due to the changing dynamics of the water-land

interface, the supporting issues of fact necessary to establish a boundary, and whether that

boundary will continue to change. The consequence is that few boundaries have been legally

established and fixed along the state’s navigable waterways. Given the value of California’s

waterfront property, legal disputes occasionally arise over boundary locations.

224

The following

sections outline how certain boundaries are determined and the rules that riparian owners must

adhere to if a public access easement runs through a portion of their property. Some of the ways

in which easements may be established are set forth in

Section E 5.

1. Ordinary High Water Mark Determination

In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case involving the boundary of an island in Los

Angeles Harbor, adopted a method for determining the ordinary high water mark of tidal waters

by averaging all of the two daily high tides occurring over an 18.6-year cycle, which are

influenced primarily by the gravitational effects of the sun and the moon.

225

However, courts

have not developed a universal test for determining the ordinary high water marks of non-tidal

navigable waterways. Non-tidal waters, and waters impounded behind a dam, are not influenced

by the same tidal rhythm.

226

Water stored in reservoirs fluctuates with the weather, and its levels

can be artificially manipulated.

227

Additionally, the unique features of each non-tidal navigable

223

CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 6357; Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 264.

224

See, e.g., Borax Consol., Ltd. v. City of Los Angeles, 296 U.S. 10 (1935); Lechuza Villas W. v. Cal. Coastal

Comm’n, 60 Cal. App. 4th 218 (1997); Fogerty II, 187 Cal. App. 3d 224.

225

Borax Consolidated, Ltd., 296 U.S. at 26-27; see also Fogerty II, 187 Cal. App. 3d at 241 n.12.

226

Fogerty II, 187 Cal. App. 3d at 241 n.12.

227

Id.

waterway raise questions about the practicality of a universal test to determine the ordinary high

water mark. Thus, courts must engage in a fact-specific inquiry when attempting to determine the

ordinary high water mark of a non-tidal navigable waterway.

228

The challenges associated with determining the boundaries of non-tidal shore zones, have

resulted in courts using a variety of tests to resolve ordinary high water mark disputes. Any one

of these tests may be employed, subject to its relevance and practicability. There is no one

standard adopted by the courts to determine this natural monument.

229

In a 1906 case from

Arkansas, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that the ordinary high water

mark is the highest point where the water’s flows have prevented the growth of vegetation.

230

However, California’s Third District Court of Appeal rejected the “vegetation” test for Lake

Tahoe in Fogerty v. State of California (Fogerty II) because it was considered inaccurate.

231

The

Fogerty II court also rejected a “mathematical averaging test,” adopted by a federal district court

in Virginia in 1943, for similar reasons.

232

Ultimately, the Fogerty II court based its ordinary

high water mark determination on a prescriptive five-year period, where the lowest annual high

level reached during the highest five-year period established the high water boundary.

233

The

Fogerty II court used prescription to establish the Lake Tahoe’s high water mark because it

reflected the continuous “actual incursion of dam waters upon the shore,” rather than a “paper”

mark that did not reflect the “ordinary” lake level.

234

This level is actually lower than that used

228

Id.

229

Bruce S. Flushman, Water Boundaries: Demystifying Land Boundaries Adjacent to Tidal or Navigable Water,

§7.3 – 7.12 .12.3 (pp.246-281), John Wiley & Sons Inc.

(2002).

230

Harrison v. Fite, 148 F. 781, 783 (8th Cir. 1906); see also Howard v. Ingersoll, 54 U.S. 381, 427 (1851).

231

Fogerty II, 187 Cal. App. 3d at 240 n.12.

232

Id.

233

Id. The ordinary high water mark level established by Fogerty II is 6,228.75’ above sea level.

234

Id. at 238-42.

by the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and the United States Army Corps of Engineers for

regulatory purposes.

235

Given the difficulty associated with determining the ordinary high water mark of a non-

tidal navigable waterway, some legal disputes over the boundary have been resolved through

settlements between the state and adjacent owner. Since it is often unclear where the ordinary

high and low water marks lie, owners and local governments may ask the State Lands

Commission to help determine the boundaries along their navigable waterways.

236

Furthermore,

owners and local governments can help prevent accidental trespass on private property by

informing the public about the locations of public access easements to and around navigable

waterways. By taking proactive steps, owners can accurately determine the portions of their

riparian property that are “impressed with the public trust” easement, prevent trespassing on their

land, and avoid potentially costly litigation in the future.

237

2. Accretion, Erosion, Submergence, Reliction, and Avulsion – Reach of Access Rights is

Subject to Change

It is a geological phenomenon that water erodes land and that land (rock, sand, or soil) is

deposited elsewhere by water or wind. The result is that the intersection of water and shorelines

of all waterways move and change over time. The upland shore can grow by accretion, the

gradual and imperceptible accumulation of land

238

or reliction, the slow and imperceptible and

235

Id. at 231. The high water level for the lake was established at 6229.1’ above sea level by the Truckee River

Agreement in 1935 and adopted by a final decree in the United States v. Orr Water Ditch Co. in 1944.

236

Water Boundaries, CAL. STATE LANDS COMM’N, http://www.slc.ca.gov/Info/Water_Boundaries.html (last visited

November 17, 2017).

237

State v. Super. Ct. (Lyon), 29 Cal. 3d 210, 231 (1981).

238

3 CAL. REAL EST. § 8:69 (4th ed. 2015).

permanent lowering of a body of water.

239

It can also be lost to submergence, the gradual and

imperceptible rise of the body of water

240

or by erosion, the wearing away of the land.

241

When land adjacent to a waterway grows “from natural causes,” upland owners can gain

title to the new shore land.

242

However, Civil Code section 1014 provides that even when an

upland owner gains title to new land by natural accretion, the land remains subject to any

existing right of way over the bank.

243

When a waterway’s shore grows, or is filled, by artificial

means, the state retains title to the land.

244

Accretion is artificial if directly caused by human

activities, such as filling, local dredging, or construction of wing dams and levees in the

immediate vicinity of the accreted land.

245

Accretion is not artificial merely because human

activities far away and long ago contributed to it.

246

Lastly, the physical shore, but not

necessarily the boundary, can change by avulsion—a sudden and perceptible change in the

location of a body of water.

247

If a riparian owner’s land is lost by avulsion and becomes

239

For a boundary case involving the term “slow and imperceptible,” see State ex rel. State Lands Comm’n. v. U. S.,

805 F. 2d 857 (1986). In that case, the court held that the 37 foot change in elevation of the lake over a 34 year

period, moving the boundary 110 feet per year and exposing approximately 12,000 acres of land was slow and

imperceptible.

240

Bruce S. Flushman, Water Boundaries: Demystifying Land Boundaries Adjacent to Tidal or Navigable Water,

§3.12.3 (p.97), John Wiley & Sons Inc.

(2002); United States v. Milner, 583 F.3d 1174, 1187-88 (9th Cir. 2009);

Lechuza Villas W., 60 Cal. App. 4th at 235-43.

241

Id.

242

CAL. CIV. CODE § 1014; State ex rel. State Lands Comm’n v. Super. Ct., 11 Cal. 4th 50, 64-65 (1995).

243

CAL. CIV. CODE § 1014 (“Where, from natural causes, land forms by imperceptible degrees upon the bank of a

river or stream, navigable or not navigable, either by accumulation of material or by the recession of the stream,

such land belongs to the owner of the bank, subject to any existing right of way over the bank.”); see also id. § 1017

(“An island, or an accumulation of land, formed in a stream which is not navigable, belongs to the owner of the

shore on that side where the island or accumulation is formed; or, if not formed on one side only, to the owners of

the shore on the two sides, divided by an imaginary line drawn through the middle of the river.”); id. § 1016

(“Islands and accumulations of land, formed in the beds of streams which are navigable, belong to the State, if there

is no title or prescription to the contrary.”).

244

State ex rel. State Lands Comm’n, 11 Cal. 4th at 56; City of Long Beach v. Mansell, 3 Cal. 3d 462, 469 (1970).

245

Id.

246

Id.

247

3 CAL. REAL EST. § 8:70 (4th ed. 2015).

attached to the opposite bank, “the owner of the part carried away may reclaim it within a year

after the owner of the land to which it has been united takes possession thereof.”

248

3. Trespass

The public does not have a right to enter private property where no right of access exists

and where signs forbidding trespass are displayed, without the license of the owner or legal

occupant.

249

Trespassers may be subject to civil penalties or criminal sanctions for entering

private property without the owner’s consent.

250

However, courts have held that the doctrine of

necessity generally protects people, like boaters, who are forced to go onto private property in an

emergency.

251

The doctrine has also been held to protect boaters whose way is obstructed by a

sudden and temporary cause.

252

If an alleged trespasser can establish beyond a reasonable doubt

the necessity to enter private property, a court may find the offense justified.

253

However, the

defendant must show that he or she faced imminent harm and had no alternative routes

available.

254

Additionally, members of the public who exercise the privilege of necessity are

responsible for any damage they cause.

255

248

CAL. CIV. CODE § 1015.

249

See CAL. PENAL CODE §§ 552–555, 602–607; see also Bolsa Land Co. v. Burdick, 151 Cal. 254, 260 (1907); but

see People v. Wilkinson, 248 Cal. App. 2d Supp. 906 (1967) where the Court of Appeal found that it was not a

violation of Pen. Code § 602, subd. (l) by holding that transient overnight camping by four individuals on a large

ranch did not constitute occupation.

250

CAL. PENAL CODE §§ 555.3, 602.5; see also CAL. FISH & GAME CODE § 2016.

251

RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 195 (1965).

252

Id.

253

See The Diana, 74 U.S. 354, 360-61 (1868).

254

See id. at 361.

255

RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 195 (1965).

C. Permissible Uses of California’s Navigable Waters: What Can the Public

Do on These Waterways?

1. Waterways that Meet the Federal Title Definition

The public has a broad right to access, use, and enjoy waterways that meet the federal

title definition of navigability. Traditionally, the scope of the public’s right to use such waters

extended to commerce, navigation, and fishing.

256

In 1913, for instance, the California Supreme

Court wrote that “lands lying between the lines of ordinary high and low tide . . . are held in trust

for the public purposes of navigation and fishery.”

257

However, by 1971, courts had expanded the scope of the public use rights on such waters

to include environmental preservation and water-related recreational activities.

258

The California

Supreme Court described this expansion in Marks v. Whitney:

Public trust easements are traditionally defined in terms of navigation, commerce

and fisheries. They have been held to include the right to fish, hunt, bathe, swim,

to use for boating and general recreation purposes the navigable waters of the

state, and to use the bottom of the navigable waters for anchoring, standing, or

other purposes. [Citations.] The public has the same rights in and to tidelands.

259

The California courts’ expression in 1971 of these common law public rights in waterways in

both the Marks decision dealing with the California’s public trust easement property right and

the Mack decision dealing with California’s public right of navigation may be attributed at least

256

See Ill. Cent. R.R. Co. v. Illinois, 146 U.S. 387, 452 (1892) (“It is a title held in trust for the people of the state,

that they may enjoy the navigation of the waters, carry on commerce over them, and have liberty of fishing therein,

freed from the obstruction or interference of private parties.”).

257

Cal. Fish Co., 166 Cal. at 584.

258

See Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 259-60; Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1045-46.

259

See Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 259; see also Cal. Fish Co., 166 Cal. at 596; Bohn, 107 Cal. App. 2d at 749; Forestier v.

Johnson, 164 Cal. 24, 39 (1912); see also Munninghoff v. Wis. Conservation Comm'n, 255 Wis. 252, 259 (1949);

Jackvony v. Powel, 21 A.2d 554, 556 (1941) (“Among the common-law rights of the public in the shore, which have

been frequently claimed by the public or have been described by authors who have discussed the law pertaining to

rights in the shore, are rights of fishing from the shore, taking seaweed and drift-stuff therefrom, going therefrom

into the sea for bathing, and also, as necessary for the enjoyment of any of these rights, and perhaps as a separate

and independent right, that of passing along the shore”); Nelson v. De Long, 213 Minn. 425, 431 (1942) (“Public

use comprehends not only navigation by watercraft for commercial purposes, but the use also for the ordinary

purposes of life such as boating, fowling, skating, bathing, taking water for domestic or agricultural purposes, and

cutting ice.”).

in part to California’s need to address both the recreational needs of a rapidly growing

population and the environmental consequences of this rapid population growth.

260

With respect to public trust lands, California courts have held that the list of permissible

uses can expand to encompass changing public needs.

261

Under the Marks v. Whitney decision,

the state is not burdened with an outmoded classification favoring one mode of utilization over

another.

262

The court identified environmental preservation as a legitimate “public use” of

tidelands in response to a “growing public recognition that one of the most important public uses

of the tidelands—a use encompassed within the tidelands trust—is the preservation of those

lands in their natural state, so that they may serve as ecological units for scientific study, as open

space, and as environments which provide food and habitat for birds and marine life, and which

favorably affect the scenery and climate of the area.”

263

2. Waterways that Satisfy the California Public Right of Navigation Test

With respect to waterways that meet the California public right of navigation definition

of navigability, the public may use them for recreational activities such as boating, fishing,

hunting, swimming, bathing, standing, wading along the waterfront, anchoring, picnicking, bird

watching, and nature study, citing court decisions from California and many other states.

264

260

See Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1045 (“With our ever-increasing population, its ever-increasing leisure time

(witness the four and five day week), and the ever-increasing need for recreational areas (witness the hundreds of

camper vehicles carrying people to areas where boating, fishing, swimming and other water sports are available), it

is extremely important that the public not be denied use of recreational water by applying the narrow and outmoded

interpretation of ‘navigability.’”); see also Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 257 (“This matter is of great public importance,

particularly in view of population pressures, demands for recreational property, and the increasing development of

seashore and waterfront property.”).

261

Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 259-60; Colberg, Inc. v. State ex rel. Dep’t Pub. Work, 67 Cal. 2d 408, 421-422 (1967) (“The

limitation of the servitude to cases involving a strict navigational purpose stems from a time when the sole use of

navigable waterways for purposes of commerce was that of surface water transport. That time is no longer with us.”)

(Internal citation omitted).

262

See Marks, 6 Cal. 3d at 259-60.

263

Id. at 259-60.

264

See Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1045; see also Munninghoff v. Wis. Conservation Comm'n, 255 Wis. 252, 259

(1949); Jackvony, 21 A.2d. at 556; Lamprey v. Metcalf, 52 Minn. 181, 199-200 (1893) (“But if, under present

conditions of society, bodies of water are used for public uses other than mere commercial navigation, in its ordinary

On such waters, California boaters have a legal right to exercise the incidents of

navigation, such as anchoring, landing and portage—to carry their boats overland around

obstacles like rapids, provided they remain below the high water mark. The only California case

to sanction portage above the high water mark involved passage over land owned by a park

district.

265

At this time, neither California courts nor the California legislature has addressed

whether boaters may portage across private property above the high water mark. Nonetheless,

California courts may find that portage across private property is reasonable in an emergency.

266

The two states that have expressly addressed this issue both concluded that portage above high

water mark is a legal incident of navigation, provided boaters act reasonably.

267

3. Reasonable Time, Place, and Manner Restrictions

The public right to access and use California’s navigable waters is not absolute; the state

can limit the public’s ability to access and use its navigable waters by imposing reasonable time,

place, and manner restrictions.

268

In In re Quinn, for example, the court upheld a county

ordinance that restricted the public’s ability to fish from a bridge over a portion of the California

sense, we fail to see why they ought not to be held to be public waters, or navigable waters, if the old nomenclature

is preferred. Certainly, we do not see why boating or sailing for pleasure should not be considered navigation, as

well as boating for mere pecuniary profit. Many, if not the most, of the meandered lakes of this state, are not adapted

to, and probably will never be used to any great extent for, commercial navigation; but they are used—and as

population increases, and towns and cities are built up in their vicinity, will be still more used—by the people for

sailing, rowing, fishing, fowling, bathing, skating, taking water for domestic, agricultural, and even city purposes,

cutting ice, and other public purposes which cannot now be enumerated or even anticipated. To hand over all these

lakes to private ownership, under any old or narrow test of navigability, would be a great wrong upon the public for

all time, the extent of which cannot, perhaps, be now even anticipated.”).

265

Hitchings, 55 Cal. App. 3d at 572.

266

See RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS § 193 (1965) (“the privilege of navigation carries with it the ancillary

privilege to enter on riparian land to the extent that this is necessary for the accomplishment of the purpose of the

principal privilege”); see also R

ESTATEMENT, supra, § 195 (privilege for deviation from public highway).

267

See MONT. CODE ANN. § 23-2-311; IDAHO CODE ANN. § 36-1601; see also Mont. Coal. for Stream Access v.

Curran, 682 P.2d 163, 172 (1984); cf. Use of Stream Bank to Scout and Portage Hazards, T

EX. PARKS & WILDLIFE,

https://tpwd.texas.gov/publications/nonpwdpubs/water_issues/rivers/navigation/riddell/scoutandportage.phtml (last

visited November 17, 2017) (explaining that Texas grants boaters a limited privilege to portage across private land).

268

See e.g. CAL. PUB. RES. CODE § 30214; (“The public access policies of this article shall be implemented in a

manner that takes into account the need to regulate the time, place, and manner of public access depending on the

facts and circumstances in each case. . . .”); C

AL. HARB. & NAV. CODE § 660; Cnty. of El Dorado, 96 Cal. App. 3d

403.

Aqueduct and also upheld a trespass conviction for other individuals who entered a fenced and

posted area along the aqueduct.

269

The court concluded that the ordinance—which was intended

to protect life, safety, welfare, and public property—was a reasonable and proper exercise of

police power and did not conflict with the California Constitution’s right to fish from public

lands.

270

Also, in People v. Deacon, the court held that a county ordinance which prohibited

riding motorcycles on an open easement within Catalina Island did not unreasonably deprive the

public of access to tidelands because the public could access the tidelands by alternate means:

hiking, horseback riding, official tour buses, authorized motor vehicles, and boating.

271

However, courts may invalidate restrictions that effectively prohibit public use of

navigable waterways.

272

No matter how laudable its purpose, the exercise of state or local police

power may not extend to total prohibition of an activity that is not otherwise unlawful.

273

People ex rel. Younger v. County of El Dorado, the appellate court held that a county ordinance,

which prohibited traveling, floating, or swimming by artificial means along a 20-mile stretch

over privately owned land underlying the South Fork of the American River, was

unconstitutional.

274

The court held that the county could enact reasonable regulations to address

pollution and sanitation problems caused by river users but could not absolutely prohibit public

use of the river.

275

269

In re Quinn, 35 Cal. App. 3d 473, 481 (1973) (“We conclude that the fencing and posting of the area adjacent to

the California Aqueduct is a reasonable and proper use of the police power under the particular facts before us in

this case to protect the lives, safety and welfare of the citizens of the state, to protect the state from possible liability

and to protect its property from possible damage”) (Holding limited by State of California v. San Luis Obispo

Sportsman’s Assn., 22 Cal. 3d 440, 447 (1978).)

270

Id.; see also CAL. CONST. art. I, § 25.

271

People v. Deacon, 87 Cal. App. 3d Supp. 29, 34 (1978).

272

Cnty. of El Dorado, 96 Cal. App. 3d at 407. But see 64 Op. Cal. Att’y Gen. 463 (1981) (“[T]he California

National Guard [has] authority to prohibit recreational uses of that portion of the Salinas River which flows through

Camp Roberts whenever such use would be incompatible with its use of Camp Roberts for military purposes.”

273

Cnty. of El Dorado, 96 Cal. App. 3d at 406.

274

Id.

275

Id.

4. Property Owners May Not Restrict Public Use of Navigable Waters

The courts have described the reach of the California public right of navigation as “the

right to navigate and to exercise the incidents of navigation in a lawful manner at any point

below high water mark” on waters that satisfy California’s small craft test.

276

Thus, property

owners cannot interfere with the public’s right to navigate or use shoreline areas below the

ordinary high water mark for incidents of navigation.

277

In fact, unauthorized obstruction of the

public’s right to access and use a navigable waterway constitutes a public nuisance.

278

In People ex rel. Baker v. Mack, the court held that the erection and maintenance of

booms, fences, and low bridges across a navigable river was a public nuisance, even though the

landowner owned title to the riverbed.

279

In People ex rel. Robarts v. Russ, the court held that no

legal difference existed between obstructing navigation by damming a navigable stream and its

non-navigable tributary.

280

However, not all encroachments on navigable waters are necessarily

public nuisances.

281

If a waterway is not navigable and not subject to the public trust easement or

the public right of navigation, landowners and riparian owners have the right to obstruct the bed

and banks, subject to state or local regulation.

282

Nonetheless, landowners and riparian owners

should be aware that a waterway does not need to be navigable in fact year-round to be found

navigable in law.

283

276

Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1050.

277

Id.

278

Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1044, citing CAL. CIV. CODE § 3479; see also People v. Gold Run Ditch & Mining

Co., 66 Cal. 138, 147 (1884) (all unauthorized intrusions upon a water highway for purposes unconnected with the

rights of navigation or passage are nuisances).

279

Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d 1040.

280

People ex rel. Robarts v. Russ, 132 Cal. 102, 105 (1901) (“. . . if a tributary of a navigable stream be necessary to

its navigability, then the owner of the land upon which this tributary is situated has no right to dam it. . . .”).

281

Coburn v. Ames, 52 Cal. 385, 397 (1877).

282

Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d at 1044.

283

See Hitchings, 55 Cal. App. 3d at 565-57; see also CAL. FISH & GAME CODE § 1602.

5. Spanish and Mexican Land Grants

When the state joined the Union in 1850, previously granted Spanish and Mexican rancho

and pueblo lands encompassed over 10 million acres of California.

284

Under the Act of March 3,

1851, pursuant to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with Mexico, the federal government

established a claims settlement procedure to adjudicate the claims of Mexican landowners.

285

The City of Los Angeles, as trustee for the state, and the State of California claimed a

retained public trust easement over navigable waters within a Mexican rancho grant.

286

However,

when that claim was challenged in Summa Corp. v. California ex rel. State Lands Commission,

the U.S. Supreme Court held that California had failed to assert the easement during the federal

government’s confirmation process involving property claimed as Mexican rancho

lands.

287

Thus, according to the court, the state did not preserve its sovereign property right to

possess, improve, and control the use of navigable waters within the boundaries of patented

rancho lands.

288

Summa addressed only state ownership of a property interest obtained pursuant to the

Equal Footing Doctrine at statehood in rancho lands and did not address other laws establishing

rights of the public to access and use navigable waters within those lands.

289

Some major

harbors, rivers, and coastal lagoons, all providing recreational and even commercial navigation,

are located within the boundaries of Mexican land grants.

290

Furthermore, Summa did not discuss

the federal Act of Admission or California’s Constitution.

291

No state or federal reported

284

Summa Corp., 466 U.S. at 202 (1984).

285

Id. at 203.

286

Id. at 203-05.

287

Summa Corp., 466 U.S. at 209.

288

Id.

289

See generally Summa Corp., 466 U.S. 198.

290

See Ranchos, CAL. STATE LANDS COMM’N, http://www.slc.ca.gov/Info/Ranchos.html (last visited November 17,

2017).

291

See generally Summa Corp., 466 U.S. 198.

decision has held that a property owner may exclude the public from a navigable waterway based

on Summa.

IV. LANDOWNER IMMUNITY AND LIABILITY

A. Private Property

California Civil Code section 846 was enacted to promote public access and use of

private property by relieving landowners of the duty to keep their premises safe for public

recreational use.

292

Similarly, landowners generally have no legal duty to warn recreational users

of hazardous conditions, uses of structures, or activities on their property or on adjacent

navigable waters.

293

In Charpentier v. Von Geldern, a landowner whose property bordered a

navigable river was held immune from liability when a member of the public was injured on the

river and the landowner had done nothing to obstruct the river’s use.

294

However, section 846 does not shield landowners from liability when they obstruct or

impede public use of navigable waters.

295

In Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. Superior Court of

Shasta County, the plaintiff was injured when his sailboat mast came into contact with the

utility’s power lines, which were overhanging an artificial waterway that satisfied the state’s

small craft test.

296

The utility asserted that it was immune from liability for the plaintiff’s injuries

under section 846.

297

The court, however, rejected that argument and held that property owners

292

CAL. CIV. CODE § 846 (“An owner of any estate or any other interest in real property, whether possessory or

nonpossessory, owes no duty of care to keep the premises safe for entry or use by others for any recreational purpose

or to give any warning of hazardous conditions, uses of, structures, or activities on those premises to persons

entering for a recreational purpose, except as provided in this section. . .”). See section for details.

293

Id.

294

Charpentier v. Von Geldern, 191 Cal. App. 3d 101, 105 (1987).

295

Pac. Gas & Elec.., 145 Cal. App. 3d 253, 259 (Holding limited by Hubbard v. Brown, 50 Cal. 3d 189, 196-97

(1990); see also C

AL. CIV. CODE § 3479 (unlawful obstruction of free passage or use of navigable waterway is a

nuisance).

296

Id. at 255-56.

297

Id. at 256.

holding “an interest in real property underlying or adjacent to navigable waters [are] not entitled

to the protection of section 846 as against persons injured while using those waters.”

298

B. Public Property and Private Land Trusts

California Government Code sections 831.2–831.7 discuss various immunities provided

to government and non-government organizations, such as private land trusts, for public use of

property they manage.

299

Similar to the immunity for private property owners discussed above,

Government Code sections 831.2-831.7 were enacted to promote public access and encourage

public agencies to keep public lands open for recreation.

300

Public entities have absolute

immunity for injuries caused by unimproved land in a natural condition, including tide and

submerged lands and navigable waters, and injuries on unpaved roads or trails used for

recreation.

301

Additionally, the legislature deemed public beaches to be in a natural condition

and unimproved as a matter of law to encourage public use of beaches.

302

In order to encourage nonprofit land trusts to preserve open space and provide public

access, the legislature created a mechanism to extend governmental immunities to nonprofit land

trusts in addition to the immunity provided by Civil Code section 846.

303

Nonprofit land trusts

can enter into an agreement with certain government agencies to enjoy immunity from liability

from injuries caused by a natural condition of unimproved property, injuries from unpaved roads

and trails for recreation and injuries from voluntary participation in hazardous recreational

activities.

304

298

Id. at 259.

299

CAL. GOV’T CODE §§ 831.2–.7.

300

Id.

301

CAL. GOV’T CODE §§ 831.2, 831.4, 831.6; Armenio v. County of San Mateo, 28 Cal. App. 4th 413, 416 (1994).

302

CAL. GOV’T CODE §§ 831.21; Schooler v. State of California, 85 Cal. App. 4th 1004, 1011 (2000).

303

CAL. GOV’T CODE § 831.5;

304

CAL. GOV’T CODE §§ 831.2, 821.4, 831.5, 831.7;

CONCLUSION

Since statehood, California laws have safeguarded the public rights to access and use its

navigable waters. Provisions of the California Constitution and various state statutes have been

enacted to protect and promote those public rights.

305

Neither the government nor owners of land

underlying navigable waters may unlawfully interfere with the public’s access and navigation

rights.

306

In general, so long as members of the public do not trespass on private property, they

may lawfully use and enjoy the state’s navigable waters below the high water mark subject to

reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions.

307

305

CAL. CONST. art. X, § 4; Cnty. of El Dorado, 96 Cal. App. 3d at 406; Pac. Gas & Elec., 145 Cal. App. 3d 253 at

258; Kern River Pub. Access Comm. v. City of Bakersfield, 170 Cal. App. 3d 1205, 1217 (1985) (quoting C

AL.

GOV’T CODE § 66478.4).

306

Cnty. of El Dorado, 96 Cal. App. 3d at 406.

307

See Marks, 6 Cal. 3d 251; Mack, 19 Cal. App. 3d 1040.