Where lands above the ordinary high-water mark, granted to the state by the Arkansas Swamp Lands Act, Act of September 28, 1850, have been conveyed into private ownership by the State of California pursuant to an act authorizing the sale and conveyance of swamp and overflowed lands, such swamp and overflowed lands, by definition, are taken free of the common law public trust for commerce, navigation, and fisheries. Where a private owner, deriving title by virtue of such a conveyance of swamp and overflowed lands, dredges or has dredged such lands pursuant to then existing law, and such dredging results or has resulted in the navigable waters of the state flowing over such lands, such acts shall not operate to create or impose the common law public trust for commerce, navigation, and fisheries with respect to such lands. Such acts shall operate to create a navigational easement, in favor of the public, upon the waters which flow over the affected real property. The navigational easement so created may be extinguished only upon the lawful removal of the navigable waters from the real property.
(Added by Stats. 1982, Ch. 123, Sec. 1.)
Last modified: October 25, 2018