RJinTennessee
New member
These are important questions. Each state owns the beds and banks of the navigable rivers within their boundaries, holding these strips of land in trust for public navigation, recreation, and fishing. The public easement to walk upon these strips of land (or pass over them in boats) in connection with these activities is supported by federal law, but the actual taking of objects, such as sand, gravel, gold nuggets, and artifacts, is regulated by state law, which varies state by state. For example, states typically allow small-scale, recreational gold panning and dredging, using small motorized dredges up to a certain size, without charging people for the gold they may find.
When a government dam-building agency such as TVA builds a project, it typically gets the state government to sign documents giving it jurisdiction over the lands and waters involved in the project. However, such documents do not eliminate public rights on the lands and waters involved--the law is that the public trust in rivers can never be lost. If Tennessee law allows you to do metal detecting in riverbeds, TVA may be overstepping its authority with a blanket prohibition on metal detecting. Generally, TVA lakes or reservoirs are still parts of public rivers, since they simply widen existing rivers that the state owns in trust for the public and cannot relinquish.
However, TVA can still fine you or arrest you based on their notions of their own authority--various government agencies fine or arrest people in unlawful ways quite frequently. If they do, it's up to you to fight it in court, which usually requires a lawyer and costs a lot. Therefore, the better way for people to deal with government agencies, in recreational disputes such as this, is usually through elected representatives. Since your dispute involves both state and federal law, call and visit the local offices of both your state legislators and your federal representative and senators. See which staff members, at which offices, are willing to ask TVA to change its metal-detecting policy, on the grounds that it appears to overstep TVA authority, by eliminating a public right that state law allows.
TVA may reply that it does indeed have this authority, and has reasons to impose it. However, that is when you need to hold your ground, by asking the staff person you are working with to insist on a TVA change of policy that will stop interfering with your legal right to use metal detectors on these public lands.
You can use anything from the NOR website in your dialog with these people. Within a few weeks NOR will have a complete e-book about public rights on rivers, citing many U.S.Supreme Court decisions and other law that supports these public rights in perpetuity. The new e-book will be prominently announced on the NOR home page.
Your contribution will help NOR continue to defend public rights on rivers against encroachment by certain government agencies and landowners.
We look forward to your further posts about this issue.
~Team NOR
When a government dam-building agency such as TVA builds a project, it typically gets the state government to sign documents giving it jurisdiction over the lands and waters involved in the project. However, such documents do not eliminate public rights on the lands and waters involved--the law is that the public trust in rivers can never be lost. If Tennessee law allows you to do metal detecting in riverbeds, TVA may be overstepping its authority with a blanket prohibition on metal detecting. Generally, TVA lakes or reservoirs are still parts of public rivers, since they simply widen existing rivers that the state owns in trust for the public and cannot relinquish.
However, TVA can still fine you or arrest you based on their notions of their own authority--various government agencies fine or arrest people in unlawful ways quite frequently. If they do, it's up to you to fight it in court, which usually requires a lawyer and costs a lot. Therefore, the better way for people to deal with government agencies, in recreational disputes such as this, is usually through elected representatives. Since your dispute involves both state and federal law, call and visit the local offices of both your state legislators and your federal representative and senators. See which staff members, at which offices, are willing to ask TVA to change its metal-detecting policy, on the grounds that it appears to overstep TVA authority, by eliminating a public right that state law allows.
TVA may reply that it does indeed have this authority, and has reasons to impose it. However, that is when you need to hold your ground, by asking the staff person you are working with to insist on a TVA change of policy that will stop interfering with your legal right to use metal detectors on these public lands.
You can use anything from the NOR website in your dialog with these people. Within a few weeks NOR will have a complete e-book about public rights on rivers, citing many U.S.Supreme Court decisions and other law that supports these public rights in perpetuity. The new e-book will be prominently announced on the NOR home page.
Your contribution will help NOR continue to defend public rights on rivers against encroachment by certain government agencies and landowners.
We look forward to your further posts about this issue.
~Team NOR