This has transpired this week, I hope I've heard the last of him.
An attorney representing a trust interest contacted me and was interested in an estimate for a "boundary survey". He was mainly interested in whether or not I would actually monument the corners. I told him it was contrary to our statutes to perform a survey and NOT monument the corners, as long as there wasn't a physical reason that wasn't possible. He emailed me a recorded deed description and I promised to get back with him after I looked at it.
The land in question is the "South Half of the Northeast Quarter" of Section 13. A quick look on Google Earth reveals that almost thirty acres of this 80 is...gone. Although at the time of the original survey it was insulated from the river by a row of irregular governments lots, the river has crept toward the property. The government lots are gone and a good chunk of this 80 now lays south of the river.
I called him back to talk further. He (really) doesn't even know the definition of the term "riparian". All he is interested in is getting the SW corner of this 80 acres set so he and his clients can "sue" the property owner on the south side of the river. His main goal is apparently to find a surveyor that will set the corner and argue in court that his client "owns" across the river. I told him the last riparian law suit I was involved with took five years and got very expensive. I would have to decline.
He apparently got the same from everybody else he called. He started calling me back and was arguing with me that I no reason to decline the work! I told him I didn't need a reason...
I finally emailed him a link to several recent lawsuits in the same area concerning the river movement. I also emailed him a list of terms including accretion and avulsion.
I haven't heard from him since yesterday afternoon. Maybe he got the message that I didn't want to help him "piss up a rope". |-)
Wow, 30 acres out of 80 is a lot of river movement. Are you pretty sure it was gradual and no sudden changes of course?
I told him the last riparian law suit I was involved with took five years and got very expensive.
I think you maybe got him a little excited when you told him that.
> Wow, 30 acres out of 80 is a lot of river movement. Are you pretty sure it was gradual and no sudden changes of course?
In 1874 the entire NE/4 was intact:
Today the NE/4 looks like this:
In reality is has done both (accreted and avulsed) over the years. This river has been litigated to death. There is one case where the cut-off ponds (they make good alfalfa pasture, as seen in the photo) were ruled as evidence of avulsion. While that case was eventually overturned, the majority of the suit was trying to determine the location of the river prior to avulsive activity (a 1955 flood, I believe).
I have a few cohorts that make their living surveying and testifying in riparian cases. When contacted two of them told me the same thing: If the thread of the river remains as one leg (as opposed to multiple threads and islands); the chances of proving an avulsive movement years after the fact are difficult and expensive. Most courts honor the river as an established boundary.
I have no opinion as to whether title to the S/2 of the NE/4 is intact as 80 acres, or contains 50 acres with a riparian boundary. I really don't want to work with a bull-headed attorney that wants someone (and I quote) "to set my client's SW corner and testify that they own that". That's just ludicrous.
Life is too short.;-)
I can see that the lotted parcels on the northerly side of the river probably dissappeared, and the parcels on the southerly side got bigger. But if a property we not boundary by a river, at its creation. does it lose property too? Do the south lotted parcels eat into the quarter-section?
Okay, I get that you don't know and that's why you don't want to testify. I am just asking in general.
You don't have aerial photos going back before 1955? That might help someone's case.
> I can see that the lotted parcels on the northerly side of the river probably dissappeared, and the parcels on the southerly side got bigger. But if a property we not boundary by a river, at its creation. does it lose property too? Do the south lotted parcels eat into the quarter-section?
>
> Okay, I get that you don't know and that's why you don't want to testify. I am just asking in general.
Great question, I quess when the river moved, it became a boundary. I hope others will chime in with their opinions.
Ron
>But if a property were not boundary by a river, at its creation. does it lose property too? Do the south lotted parcels eat into the quarter-section?
There are a number of ways to look at it, but yes. The government lots on the north side of the river have "disappeared". The river now has given a standard 1/4 section riparian rights. The lots on the south side of the river have grown in area.
Here's a good question:
If the river creeps back to the south, do the government lots on the north "reappear"? Or can a once standard parcel (non-riparian) claim the accreted area all the way to the river?
Although there are special cases in every scenario, once the river reaches a property that was non-riparian, the property then continues with riparian rights and usually can claim more area if the river moves south. Determining the boundaries in such an occurrence can be argued until the moon falls from the sky...
I would much rather read about these matters in a magazine than to participate .
There are SCS photos available back to the thirties. You will see a railroad bridge west of the property, on the north side of the river. When the river flooded in the 1950s, the railroad replaced the bridge and did extensive bank work, west (upstream) of the bridge. There is at least one court case where the land owner argued that the railroad work "altered" the course of the river, but that was west of this property.
Although the flood did not change the river course a great deal in this area, it did scour a tremendous amount of vegetation and deposited sand banks all about.
A chronological review of the available aerials will generally leave a person with the impression that the river has moved through accretion. There is no one particular event that changed the actual river bed. I do not have those aerials but I have previously had a chance to review them.
Oklahomans are litigious
You Okies sure are litigious when dealing with riparian rights. Not only will they sue other states, ahem Texas, but each other. That sooner mentality is strong with these folks.
Oklahomans are litigious
Every other sentence in a conversation with a neighbor starts with, "Well, by gawd..." 😉
> I told him the last riparian law suit I was involved with took five years and got very expensive.
>
> I think you maybe got him a little excited when you told him that.
I know I did!
:woot:
> Here's a good question:
>
> If the river creeps back to the south, do the government lots on the north "reappear"? Or can a once standard parcel (non-riparian) claim the accreted area all the way to the river?
I remember, reading somewhere, that if you lose property due to erosion, you can never gain it back again. I've lost a few brain cells over the years, so; where I read that might've been in one of them. I do remember, though, that it only related to an entire parcel. If the line meandered back and forth within a parcel, so did the ownership.
Of course, your mileage may vary, depending on the neck of the woods you happen to be working in.....
> I would much rather read about these matters in a magazine than to participate.
Come on Mr. Cash; where is your sense of adventure?;-)
:snarky: B-)
Dugger
Tell him the truth.
[sarcasm]The legal center of the section can never be set. It's a moving target![/sarcasm]
Give him a price for locating and mapping the four quarter corners! He can take it from there.
Actually, the way that survey was done he probably only needs the north 1/4, east 1/4 and northeast corner of the section. A 25% reduction in price.
Around here (New Zealand), if the river is the boundary and that river moves by accretion or erosion, then the boundary moves.
But it would seem that the river is not the boundary - but rather flows through the original property. So under our laws the original boundary positions would still hold.
Reminds me of something I read here while back about wrestling with attorneys, or was it pigs .... anyway, you get dirty and the ummm, pig likes it? 😉
[sarcasm]If the bridge had been built in the right place, the river channel may not have moved.[/sarcasm]
I certainly hope there are no surveyors out there who are foolish enough to testify as to what anyone owns. Title is the province of attorneys; surveyors can only testify as to location, not ownership, which is a whole different ball of wax.
We have a case where the river now has two channels instead of one. This has isolated a large "island" that is several miles long and up to nearly three miles wide. The original channel still flows after maybe 90 years since the event. However, the flow gradually increases into the "cutoff" and decreases into the river. In another hundred years there will be no flow in the river and all will go via the cutoff. All lands along the original river were platted as government lots in 1865. The cutoff was identified as being a slough, including flow from the north beyond the breakover point. It's just that the slough was very close to the river channel in one spot. All lands through which the "cutoff" runs are normal sections with aliquot splits. Well, all except a couple where landowners have sold all land west of the cutoff to one person and all land east of the cutoff to another. Those land areas are subject to increase or decrease as the "cutoff" gradually moves in a manner similar to other deeds defined by a boundary subject to gradual movement.
