State of Alaska sues the United States over who owns Fortymile River sections

Litigation swirling around water rights and land ownership in Alaska came in the form of a federal lawsuit filed last week by the State of Alaska against the U.S. government. The suit, brought on behalf of Alaska by the state attorney general's office, states that two tributaries of the Fortymile River, a 60-mile piece of the Yukon River, which flows from Canada's Yukon Territory through Alaska to the Bering Sea, belong to the state, and not to the feds. According to documents set forth by Jahna Lindemuth, Attorney General for Alaska, the ownership of the Middle Fork and North Fork of the river, and more importantly, the land under those river sections, was decided decades ago. Brought into question in the suit is exactly when and where the river sections were declared navigable, and if, before Alaska became a state, this definition precludes Alaska from claiming ownership today. The state says the river sections were deemed valid at the time of statehood. "The State obtained ownership to its submerged lands on the date of statehood pursuant to the Equal Footing Doctrine, the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, and the Alaska Statehood Act," Lindemuth wrote in court documents. However, according to Bureau of Land Management, that may not be the case, due to the murky nature of Supreme court ruling interpretations. "The test of navigability is: was the body of water being used as a highway of commerce on the date of statehood, or was it susceptible to being used as a highway of commerce," explained Erika Reed, the acting deputy director for Lands and Cadastral Survey at with the BLM. "Navigability does not necessarily mean boat-ability. And navigability is based on case law, it's not adjusted by BLM," Reed said. "And navigability determinations that BLM makes, are simply administrative findings. Only a court can actually make a ruling."...MORE