re: Gating canals in houma area

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If it is a naturally occurring bayou/stream/river/ running water it probably cannot be. That's the law whether you want it to be or not. What is "running water?" I don't know, nor does the LA Supreme Court. It's never really been defined. Most scholars tend to side with the public having a right of use. We have AG Opinions stating they cannot be. Yet you claim it's 100% no. It's not as clear cut as you would like it to be. But there are countless cases from LA State courts that make no mention or relevance of 1812 when determining whether a body of water is navigable. That's for sure. I'm not going to do your research for you.

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By this suit plaintiff, a non-profit property owners association, seeks to enjoin the construction of a bridge which defendants propose to build across the Bogue Falaya River at a point approximately four miles north of Covington, Louisiana. They allege that the river is navigable at that location.

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Plaintiff predicated its suit on the premise that the Bogue Falaya River is navigable and that defendants may not construct a bridge over a navigable stream without first complying with procedures established by the state and federal governments because the bed and water of navigable waterways is owned by the state

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Louisiana's ownership of the beds and waters of the navigable waterways within the state is by virtue of the Equal Footing Doctrine. 2 Our inquiry regarding the navigability of the Bogue Falaya River must therefore focus upon the status of the river in 1812, the year Louisiana [**7] entered the Union, and the means of navigation available at that time, because HN4Go to the description of this Headnote.navigability to fix ownership of the river bed is determined by the year of admission to statehood for states other than the original thirteen.

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Our inquiry into the navigability of the Bogue Falaya River is aided by a case decided by this Court many years ago. Ingram v. Police Jury of St. Tammany, 20 La.Ann. 226 (1868) also concerned efforts to halt construction of a bridge at approximately the same location as the one at issue in the instant case.

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The site of defendant's proposed bridge is admittedly a short distance (about three miles) upstream from the location determined to be navigable in Ingram. However, there are indications in the record before us that, as is the case at the present time, in 1812 there was no substantial difference in the nature of the river at the respective locations. For instance, there was trial testimony that in [**13] the nineteenth century lumbering operations were carried on in the vicinity of defendant's proposed bridge and that the lumber was floated down the Bogue Falaya to Covington. Testimony to the same effect is found in Ingram, the record of which was introduced into evidence in the instant case.

We conclude that the district court and the Court of Appeal were correct in determining that the Bogue Falaya River at the point where defendants propose to build a bridge was navigable in fact at the time Louisiana was admitted to the Union and thus a public waterway then and today. The injunction was properly granted.

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