I'm not trying to make this political, but what's going on with the state line? Apparently there are noises being made that the feds are trying to claim up to 90,000 acres on the south side of the current river location.
> I'm not trying to make this political, but what's going on with the state line? Apparently there are noises being made that the feds are trying to claim up to 90,000 acres on the south side of the current river location.
The south line of the state is the Red River, and the Red River is a very broad and meandering river which is largely dry most of the time, except when it is flooding. And except where dams have changed the natural water level. I hadn't heard anything about a current boundary dispute, but you can be sure it has to do with this water boundary.
Article is from Oct 2013, but I'll guess that it's not resolved yet.
> > I'm not trying to make this political, but what's going on with the state line? Apparently there are noises being made that the feds are trying to claim up to 90,000 acres on the south side of the current river location.
> The south line of the state is the Red River, and the Red River is a very broad and meandering river which is largely dry most of the time, except when it is flooding. And except where dams have changed the natural water level. I hadn't heard anything about a current boundary dispute, but you can be sure it has to do with this water boundary.
Actually, I'm afraid that it is entirely political. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the dude making all the noises about the BLM trying to control Texas land is running for .. Governor of Texas and that's the sort of afactual material that he is betting his voters will eat up.
Texas and Oklahoma have been feuding since, well...since there has been an Oklahoma or Texas.
Most of the disagreements have stemmed from the fact that the original boundary of the Louisiana Purchase was the "south shore of the Red River"...interpret that how you may. With the help of a past SCOTUS ruling the Red River Compact fixes the north boundary line of Texas at the normal vegetation line of the south shore of the Red. I believe that has caused more arguments than it fixed. Due mostly to the riparian nature of any shore. Most of the SCOTUS cases have had very little to do with actual surveyed lines, just ambiguous definitions.
Here is a link to the Summer 2013 case that Justice Sotomayor expounded upon:
A more interesting "Texas-Oklahoma Water" case actually has nothing to do with the Red River. Tarrant County, Texas wanted to buy water rights from Sardis Lake in Pushmataha County, Oklahoma.
A couple of Native Nations are claiming a portion of these water rights as mineral interest and would like to sell the water to the Texas County. That would amount to Native Americans making money off the lands they were given in an 1835 Treaty. God Forbid the U.S. Government honor a treaty made with a Native Nation...
here's a link to a NY Times article:
Kent, that may be, but here is an article that doesn't mention Abbott at all.
http://www.rfdtv.com/story/25206377/oklahoma-texas-border-dispute-has-ranchers-worried
It does seem fishy that every time the river moves south, the feds claim it's erosion, and the state line moves, but when it moves north, the feds claim it's avulsion, and the state line doesn't move.
> It does seem fishy that every time the river moves south, the feds claim it's erosion, and the state line moves, but when it moves north, the feds claim it's avulsion, and the state line doesn't move.
Okay, the credit for that article was an email from the Texas Farm Bureau. Considering how badly the article mangles the basic law, confusing erosion and accretion, I severely doubt the quality of the rest.
From the article:
>"How can BLM come in and say, "Hey, this isn't yours." Even though it’s patented from the state, you've always paid taxes on it. Our family has paid taxes for over 100 years on this place. We've got a deed to it. But yet they walked in and said it wasn't ours," said Henderson."
Well in Texas if you buy land bounded by a navigable stream, you can't expect that the riparian boundary will never change. End of report.
>"Ever since the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, there has been controversy over where Oklahoma ends and Texas begins."
Uh, no. There was the famous boundary suit in the 1920's that settled how the boundary was to be determined.
>"In layman’s terms the boundary is the vegetation line on the south side of the Red River."
Uh, no. It's the gradient boundary, a line at the level of the river when it is halfway between ordinary flow and the stage at which the river rising in flood first overtops its banks.
>"Over time the river moves. This movement north toward Oklahoma is the sticking point."
Yeah. If you gaining you ain't complaining. Next.
>"The sandy soils erode in a process called accretion, which wipes out the bank. So the property line follows the river."
LOL.
>"BLM claims that the river moved by another process called avulsion. With avulsion, the land may be changed by flood or currents, but the property line isn’t. So BLM claims that when the river moved back north the property line stayed put."
Well, if it was an avulsive change, i.e. the river cut a new channel and the old bank can still be identified, the boundary didn't move, Junior.
>"It doesn’t help that Oklahoma defines avulsion differently than Texas and the U.S."
Creative, but still idiotic. In other words, this is a case of total B.S designed by the "Farm Bureau" to gin up resentment across rural Texas, as if the Okie-run BLM is going to steal land across Texas once they've gotten through with the Red River. Political.
So do the water masters of Tarrant County, Tex., 200 miles to the south, who are looking to supply new subdivisions around Fort Worth and are suing for access.
That is the water fight going on in a nutshell
The Texas Oklahoma border dispute is an ongoing dispute as to where the boundary lies.
With where it lies now, the state of Oklahoma would need a navy to enforce it because it lies basically at the vegetation line on the Texas side of the Red River.
In other places it is recognized at the gradient boundary along an old river bank a long way South from the actual flowing river.
I've also seen areas that 4x4 post were monuments to the boundary where the river and its bank have disappeared and stand in the middle of bottom land.
All along those areas it is pretty much places to stay away from when wet because you may disappear into the mud and/or sifting sands and is a giant sand dune when dry.
😉
Somebody is not doing research
Based on my study of Supreme Court cases (I'm going to briefly summarize - not provide citations) state boundaries may or may not be riparian.
The SCOTUS has determined that state boundaries ARE riparian when the boundary follows the "middle" of a river based on the idea that both states should equally enjoy the benefit of the deepest part of the shipping channel.
The SCOTUS has determined that state boundaries are NOT riparian when the boundary has been fixed at some point in time along a shore following monuments, low or high water, etc. As a for instance, the boundary between KY - OH/IN is fixed along the North shore of the Ohio where it was in (I think) 1798. That boundary does not move with the river.
Kent,
"Uh, no. There was the famous boundary suit in the 1920's that settled how the boundary was to be determined."
Uh, yes. Anyone with enough money to hire a lawyer can "unsettle" something "settled."
"Well, if it was an avulsive change, i.e. the river cut a new channel and the old bank can still be identified, the boundary didn't move, Junior."
I disagree with you on that one, Son. But I still think you rock that hat.:-)
Dave
Weird, that article looks vaguely familiar. I don't know why.
> Creative, but still idiotic. In other words, this is a case of total B.S designed by the "Farm Bureau" to gin up resentment across rural Texas, as if the Okie-run BLM is going to steal land across Texas once they've gotten through with the Red River. Political.
Maybe.
However, if the BLM claims that any land formed on the south side of the Red River automatically belongs to them, then I'd say this is something to be worried about.
> Weird, that article looks vaguely familiar. I don't know why.
Was I required to give credit for your previous posting? Sorry CREDIT
Well again... no good deed goes unpunished (me posting the link for the OP).
I guess I won't help anybody out anymore.
Thank you for pointing out my gross misstep of etiquette.
Carl
Easy...
I'm smiling - don't know about you?
Have a good day.
> However, if the BLM claims that any land formed on the south side of the Red River automatically belongs to them, then I'd say this is something to be worried about.
I see that I didn't pay attention to the provisions of the Red River Compact that fixed the state line along the Red River between Texas and Oklahoma at the vegetation line:
I wouldn't think that adjusting the state boundary by agreement could divest private landowners of rights that extended to a different river bank (i.e. the gradient boundary), but I haven't read all of the provisions of the agreement as enacted into law in Texas.
Why would that land not belong to the property owner on the north side of the river? What case law gives the United State government the right to land created in non-coastal areas like this?
> Why would that land not belong to the property owner on the north side of the river? What case law gives the United State government the right to land created in non-coastal areas like this?
Here is the key provision of the Red River Compact as it affects Texas landowners:
>(b) It is the principal purpose of the party states in entering into this compact to establish an identifiable boundary between the states of Texas and Oklahoma along the Red River as of the effective date of this compact without interfering with or otherwise affecting private property rights or title to property.
In other words, adopting the vegetation line along the South bank of the Red River as the state boundary did not divest a Texas landowner whose title extends to the gradient boundary along the South bank of the Red River of any rights.
