| Barbed wire across the river should be clearly marked or removed, but
only by the property owner if the fence is there legally. Paddlers should be careful to
respect the rights of property owners. On a
meandered river, a fence must be above the normal high water mark. On a non-meandered
river, the fence may be across the river legally but must not block navigation. Such
fences should be marked to warn paddlers and paddlers need to be warned about such
dangers. from the Skunk River Paddler pages, information on meandered
and non-meandered rivers
MEANDERED RIVERS
In Iowa, on those rivers designated as meandered (see list
below), the state owns the stream bed up to the normal high water mark. On those
designated as non-meandered, the state owns the water only, and the adjacent land owners
own the stream bed.
It's often said that if you step out of your boat on a
non-meandered river, technically you are trespassing. This may not be so, as this could be
considered a part of "navigating" (see below). But it's never been tested in
court.
There are (portions of) 13 interior rivers classified as
meandered:
Cedar, lower 157 miles beginning near Cedar Falls
Des Moines, 278 miles, mouth to confluence of east & west forks
East Fork DM, mouth to north edge of Algona, 39 miles
West Fork DM, mouth to Emmetsburg, 44 miles
Iowa, lower 123 miles beginning west of Marengo
Maqouketa, lower 26 miles beginning near Maquoketa
Little Maquoketa, lower 2 miles
Nishnabotna, lower 6 miles
Raccoon, mouth to Dallas-Polk County line, 13 miles
Skunk, lower 61 miles (none of the South Skunk)
Turkey River, lower 58 miles beginning near Clermont
Upper Iowa River, lower 6 miles
Wapsipinicon, lower 98 miles beginning near Central City
Border Rivers:
The boundary streams of the state, namely the Mississippi (315 miles),
Des
Moines (31 miles), Missouri (178 miles), and Big Sioux (136 miles) rivers,
are
meandered for their entire length along the boundary of the state.
"Meandered" is a surveyor's term going back to when
the state was first surveyed.
The Iowa DNR has this to say about public waters: "Water
occurring in any river, stream or creek having definite banks and bed with visible
eveidence of the flow of water is declared to be public waters of the state of Iowa and
subject to use by the public for navigation purposes in accordance with law".
Iowa further defines "navigable waters" as "all
lakes, rivers and streams, which can support a vessel capable of carrying one or more
persons during a total of six months period in one out of every ten years". The US
Supreme Court has ruled that a stream may be navigable even if it contains some
obstructions.
Where a public road crosses a stream, the road right-of-way
extends across the stream and its banks. You may encounter and cross a fence in the
right-of-way, but, as with those encountered in a stream, do not damage it.
See Meandered Rivers on the IA DNR Environmental Protection
Division website. |