Case Summary
Issue:
Whether Alaska may claim title to lands underlying non-navigable streams that were conveyed by the federal government into private ownership prior to Statehood?
Plaintiff:
Lacano Investments, LLC, Nowell Avenue Development, and Ava L. Eads, for themselves and for the class they represent
Defendant:
Dan Sullivan, Commission, Alaska Department of Natural Resources and Brent Goodrum, Director, Division of Mining, Land & Water, Alaska Department of Natural Resources, both in their official capacities
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Case History
Early in the 1900s and continuing until 1959 when Alaska became a State, federal surveyors set aside navigable riversā”highways of commerce”‘āfor the future State of Alaska. Small streams, which were not navigable, were included in the property that landowners bought from the government to be used as homesteads, mining claims, or townsites. Since that time, the landowners treated these streams as their private property. In some location, they have been principle sources of sand and gravel for several cities; inn other places they were filled in and are now the sites of commercial and residential development.
Recently, Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources instituted a “Navigability Policy” that revisits these decade-old determinations by federal surveyors. Alaska says, if a recreational rubber raft can float down a stream, it is “navigable!” Then it uses air photos from 1959 to redraw property lines from the old survey plats, and when a landowner seeks a permit to use his land, Alaska says it owns the land and wants payment for a “lease.”
