FirstFreedom
Moderator
Ok, I'm not doubting you, but let's take an example... the missouri river, which is a "navigable waterway", if you trace it all the way to its source up in Montana or wherever, eventually will narrow to 10 feet wide. So because it's navigable anywhere along its length, it is still public even on the guy's land where it's 10 feet wide?
See, a lot of tributaries, which are not navigable, that feed the upper Missouri, for example, are going to have different names than that ONE particular route at each fork which remains the Missouri, not a tributary. So just because you're unlucky enough to have the land which holds the original actual Missouri headwaters, rather than a differently named creek that happens to later run into the Missouri, through sheer arbitrary naming luck, then YOUR otherwise-non-navigable creek which happens to be the Missouri river hundreds of miles downstream, is going to be considered navigable? I mean, at most points, the tributaries flowing in can be clearly seen to be true tributaries, as being of much smaller size than the Missouri itself. But at some point, a tributary and the Missouri itself, at some fork, is going be the same size as the tributary, and indistinguishable, other than what happens to have been named what, when originally named.
Or is there a map which shows some "cutoff point" on otherwise navigable courses, as of the time of statehood, or what? Do I need to switch to decaf here?