re: HR 391 (Water Access Rights) Passes 5-3 in committee

You're right in that Louisiana uses a map from 1812 to determine navigability and that's where I think we mis-stepped in that we the proponents of HB391 should have asked the legislative body to re-define navigability and put it more in-line with the rest of the country. In Texas under a law dating from 1837, a stream is navigable so far as it retains an average width of 30 feet from its mouth up. The width measured is the distance between the fast (or firmly fixed) land banks. A stream satisfying the 30 foot rule is sometimes referred to as “statutorily navigable” or “navigable by statute.” Under a court decision, the public has rights along a stream navigable by statute just as if the stream were navigable in fact. Texas also tests for Navigability in Fact

Behind all definitions of navigable waters lies the idea of public utility. Waters, which in their natural state are useful to the public for a considerable portion of the year are navigable. Boats are mentioned in the decisions because boats are the usual means by which waters are utilized by the public, and commerce is usually mentioned because carrying produce and merchandise is the usual public demand for such waters. But floating logs has frequently been held to be navigation, and hunting and fishing, and even pleasure boating, have been held to be proper public uses.