Quote:
Originally Posted by Kenner18
You are more than welcome to take the land owners on,trust me you wont be the first one. Its not a matter of giving up easy ,its a battle that has already been fought and lost . Some years back there was a group called P.O.W.(People for Open Water) that took on the land owners over access to the Greys Ditch in Vinton. Long story short its still off limits to the public ,even though it is tidal and runs in the Vinton Drain Ditch.
So go right on ahead and take them on .Good Luck I hope you win.
Just remember -If you stick it out there ,dont be afraid to get it chopped off.
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similar scenrio happened on the red river in 2010, attorney general buddy caldwell ruled the land under the water is private but the water on top is public, the two are two different subjects thus the public was granted access and the land owners had to remove the fences and gates. heres a litte of that.
[SIZE=3]"In five separate Attorney General’s Opinion requests in 2010, staff from the Attorney General’s Office had the opportunity to analyze whether the State has control over various types of surface waters.26 The requests included a privately-owned (bed) creek, the Red River, and two privately-owned (bed) lakes. In all four scenarios, the Office opined that, as to the "running waters" within these water bodies, irrespective of the ownership of their beds, the State owned the water.27 The conclusions from these analyses were based upon the language of the Civil Code, noted above, which classifies "running waters" as a public thing. These conclusions are consistent with the notion that running water is essentially a fugacious thing that is transient when over any one piece of land and thus that the law should treat the water separately from the land over which it runs. Further, it is axiomatic that impacts to running waters in any one location can have downstream impacts, it is thus necessary to recognize that this resource is public in nature to which the protections embodied in the public trust doctrine must attach.
The creek and the Red River are obviously "running waters." However, the lakes present a unique situation: are they actually "running?" In the scenario that involved Smithport Lake and Clear Lake, that question was irrelevant. In that situation, the private owners had granted the State a servitude that provided the authority for the State to control, use, and protect the waters of those privately-owned lakes. Thus, whether the waters were "running" was a superfluous question, as the State has control of the waters by contractual agreement regardless of their "running" status. In the Lake Claiborne situation, because the waters are connected with numerous bayous that flow in and out of the lake and are otherwise connected to other running waters, this lake was considered to be the running water of the State.28 This result seems logical, as lakes are seldom unconnected (and thus flowing to and from) other water bodies. Hence, they should be considered "running waters." In fact, it is difficult to imagine a scenario when lake [SIZE=3]
waters are not connected to some other running water source and are thus running in their own right. Admittedly, the question of how much flow is required for a water body to be considered "running" has not yet been addressed, however, even seasonally-existing waterways are "running" when there is water in them. Thus, it seems that even periodic or seasonal streams, when holding "running water" should fall under the Civil Code classification of public things and should be subject to State control and ownership"
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