United States v. Willow River Power Company/Opinion of the Court

The Willow River Power Company has been awarded $25,000 by the Court of Claims as just compensation for impaired efficiency of its hydroelectric plant caused by the action of the United States in raising the water level of the St. Croix River. Reality of damage and reasonableness of the award are not in issue. Our question is whether the damage is the result of a 'taking' of private property, for which just compensation is required by the Fifth Amendment.

Willow River in its natural state was a non-navigable stream, which flowed to within a few rods of the St. Croix River, turned and roughly paralleled it for something less than a mile, and then emptied into the St. Croix. Many years ago an earth dam was thrown across the Willow about a half-mile above its natural month. A new mouth was cut across the narrow neck which separated the two rivers and a dam was built across the artificial channel close to or upon the banks of the St. Croix. Here also was built a mill, which operated under the head produced in the pool by the two dams, which obstructed both the natural and the artificial channel of the Willow River.

These lands and appurtenant rights were acquired by the Willow River Power Company, a public utility corporation of the State of Wisconsin, and were devoted to hydroelectric generation for supply of the neighborhood. The plant was the lowest of four on Willow River operated by the Company as an integrated system. The power house was located on land owned by the Company above ordinary high water of the St. Croix. Mechanical energy for generation of electrical energy was developed by water in falling from the artificial level of non-navigable Willow River to the natural level of navigable St. Croix River. The elevation of the head water when at the crest of the gates was 689 feet above mean sea level. The operating head varied because elevation of the tail water was governed by the fluctuating level of the St. Croix. When that river was low, the maximum head was developed, and was 22.5 feet; when the river was at flood stage, the operating head diminished to as little as eight feet. The ordinary high-water mark is found to have been 672 feet, and the head available above that was seventeen feet.

The Government, in pursuance of a congressional plan to improve navigation, in August of 1938 had completed what is known as the Red Wing Dam in the Upper Mississippi, into which the St. Croix flows. This dam was some thirty miles downstream, but it created a pool which extended upstream on the St. Croix beyond respondent's plant at an ordinary elevation of 675 feet. Thus the water level maintained by the Government in the St. Croix was approximately three feet above its ordinary high-water level at claimant's property. By thus raising the level at which tail waters must flow off from claimant's plant, the Government reduced the operating head by three feet, using ordinary high water as the standard, and diminished the plant's capacity to produce electric energy. The Company was obliged to supplement its production by purchase from other sources.

Loss of power was made the only basis of the award. The Court of Claims found as a fact that 'The value of the loss in power as a result of the raising of the level of the St. Croix River by 3 feet above ordinary high water was $25,000 at the time and place of taking,' and it rendered judgment for that amount. There is no finding that any fast lands were flooded or that other injury was done to property or that claimant otherwise was deprived of any use of its property. It is true that the water level was above high-water mark on the St. Croix River banks and on claimant's structures, but damage to land as land or to structures as such is not shown to be more than nominal and accounts for no part of the award. The court held that the Government 'had a right to raise the level of the river to ordinary high-water mark with impunity, but it is liable for the taking or deprivation of such property rights as may have resulted from raising the level beyond that point.' Turning, then, to ascertain what property right had been 'taken', the Court referred to United States v. Cress, 243 U.S. 316, 329, 330, 37 S.Ct. 380, 385, 386, 61 L.Ed. 746, which it said was identical in facts, and held it had no option but to follow it and that 'It results that plaintiff is entitled to recover the value of the decrease in the head of its dam.'

The Fifth Amendment, which requires just compensation where private property is taken for public use, undertakes to redistribute certain economic losses inflicted by public improvements so that they will fall upon the public rather than wholly upon those who happen to lie in the path of the project. It does not undertake, however, to socialize all losses, but those only which result from a taking of property. If damages from any other cause are to be absorbed by the public, they must be assumed by act of Congress and may not be awarded by the courts merely by implication from the constitutional provision. The court below thought that decrease of head under the circumstances was a 'taking' of such a 'property right,' and that is the contention of the claimant here.

It is clear, of course, that a head of water has value and that the Company has an economic interest in keeping the St. Croix at the lower level. But not all economic interests are 'property rights'; only those economic advantages are 'rights' which have the law back of them, and only when they are so recognized may courts compel others to forbear from interfering with them or to compensate for their invasion. The law long has recognized that the right of ownership in land may carry with it a legal right to enjoy some benefits from adjacent waters. But that a closed catalogue of abstract and absolute 'property rights' in water hovers over a given piece of shore land, good against all the world, is not in this day a permissible assumption. We cannot start the process of decision by calling such a claim as we have here a 'property right'; whether it is a property right is really the question to be answered. Such economic uses are rights only when they are legally protected interests. Whether they are such interests may depend on the claimant's rights in the land to which he claims the water rights to be appurtenant or incidental; on the navigable or non-navigable nature of the waters from which he advantages; on the substance of the enjoyment thereof for which he claims legal protection; on the legal relations of the adversary claimed to be under a duty to observe or compensate his interests; and on whether the conflict is with another private riparian interest or with a public interest in navigation. The claimant's assertion that its interest in a power head amounts to a 'property right' is made under circumstances not present in any case before considered by this Court.

Claimant is the owner of lands riparian to the St. Croix River, and under the law of Wisconsin, in which the lands lie, the shore owner also has title to the bed of the stream. Kaukauna Water-Power Co. v. Green Bay & M. Canal Co., 142 U.S. 254, 271, 12 S.Ct. 173, 177, 35 L.Ed. 1004; Jones v. Pettibone, 2 Wis. 308; Willow River Club v. Wade, 100 Wis. 86, 76 N.W. 273, 42 L.R.A. 305. The case seems to have been tried on the theory that the Company may also claim because of interference with its rights as a riparian owner on the Willow. But the Government has not interfered with any natural flow of the Willow past claimant's lands. Where it was riparian owner along Willow's natural channel claimant already had created an artificial level much above the Government level. If claimant's land along the Willow was at all affected it was at the point where the land was riparian to the artificial channel, just back of the shore line of the St. Croix, where the land had been cut away to install the dam and power plant and to utilize the advantages of being riparian to the St. Croix. We think the claimant's maximum and only interest in the level of the St. Croix arises from its riparian position thereon and is not helped by the fact that its utilization of riparian lands on the St. Croix involves conducting over them at artificial levels waters from the Willow.

The property right asserted to be appurtenant to claimant's land is that described in United States v. Cress, 243 U.S. 316, 330, 37 S.Ct. 380, 386, 61 L.Ed. 746, as 'the right to have the water flow away from the mill-dam unobstructed. Except as in the course of nature' and held in that case to be an 'inseparable part' of the land. The argument here is put that the waters of the St. Croix were backed up into claimant's tail race, causing damage. But if a dyke kept the waters of the St. Croix out of the tail race entirely it would not help. The water falling from the Willow must go somewhere, and the head may be preserved only by having the St. Croix channel serve as a run-off for the tail waters. The run-off of claimant's water may be said to be obstructed by the presence of an increased level of Government-impounded water at the end of claimant's discharge pipes. The resulting damage may be passed on to the Government only if the riparian owner's interest in 'having the water flow away' unobstructed above the high-water line is a legally protected one.

The basic doctrine of riparian rights in flowing streams prevails with minor variations in thirty-one states of the Union. It chiefly was evolved to settle conflicts between parties, both of whom were riparian owners. Equality of right between such claimants was the essence of the resulting water law. 'The fundamental principle of this system is that each riparian proprietor has an equal right to make a reasonable use of the waters of the stream, subject to the equal right of the other riparian proprietors likewise to make a reasonable use.' With this basic principle as a bench mark, particular rights to use flowing water on riparian lands for domestic purposes and for power were defined, each right in every riparian owner subject to the same right in others above and to a corresponding duty to those below.

The doctrine of riparian rights attained its maximum authority on non-navigable streams. No overriding public interest chilled the contest between owners to get the utmost in benefits from flowing streams. Physical conditions usually favored practical utilization of theoretical rights. In general non-navigable streams were small, shifted their courses easily and were not stable enough to serve as property lines as larger streams often do. They were shallow, could be forded and were no great obstacle to tillage or pasturage on two sides of the stream as a single operation. Such streams, like the lands, were fenced in, and while the waters might show resentment by carrying away a few spans of fence in the spring, the riparian owner's rights in such streams were acknowledged by the custom of the countryside as well as recognized by the law. In such surroundings and as between such owners equality of benefits from flowing waters was sought in the rule that each was entitled to their natural flow, subject only to a reasonable riparian use which must not substantially diminish their quantity or impair their quality. It was in such a stream that this Court found Cress as a landowner under the law of Kentucky possessed 'the right to have the water flow away from the mill-dam unobstructed, except as in the course of nature.' 243 U.S. 316, 330, 37 S.Ct. 380, 386, 61 L.Ed. 746.

Cress owned riparian lands and the bed as well of a non-navigable creek in Kentucky. He built a dam which pooled the water and diverted it to his headrace; after it turned the wheel of his mill, it was returned to the stream by his tail race. The Government built a dam in the navigable Kentucky River which backed up the water in this non-navigable tributary to a point one foot below the creast of the mill dam, leaving an unworkable head. The Court concluded that Cress was entitled to compensation as for a taking. It found that Cress had the right as a riparian owner to the natural flow-off of the water in this non-navigable stream. The Cress case is significant in that it measured the rights of a riparian owner against the Government in improving navigation by the standard which had been evolved to measure the rights of riparian owners against each other. The rights of the Government at that location were held to be no greater than those of a riparian owner, and therefore, of course, not paramount to the rights of Cress.

We are of opinion that the Cress case does not govern this one and that there is no warrant for applying it, as the claimant asks, or for overruling it, as the Government intimates would be desirable. The Government there was charged with the consequences of changing the level of a non-navigable stream; here it is sought to be charged with the same consequences from changing the level in a navigable one. In the former case the navigation interest was held not to be a dominant one at the property damaged; here dominance of the navigation interest at the St. Croix is clear. And the claimant in this case cannot stand in the Cress shoes unless it can establish the same right to have the navigable St. Croix flow tail waters away at natural levels that Cress had to have the non-navigable stream run off his tail waters at natural levels. This could only be done by an extension of the doctrine of the Cress case. As we have already said, it 'must be confined to the facts there disclosed.' United States v. Chicago, M. St. P. & P.R. Co., 312 U.S. 592, 597, 313 U.S. 543, 61 S.Ct. 772, 775, 85 L.Ed. 1064.

On navigable streams a different right intervenes. While riparian owners on navigable streams usually were held to have the same rights to be free from interferences of other riparian owners as on non-navigable streams, it was recognized from the beginning that all riparian interests were subject to a dominant public interest in navigation. The consequences of the latter upon the former have been the subject of frequent litigation.

Without detailing the long struggle between such conflicting interests on navigable streams, it may be pointed out that by 1909 the lines had become sharply drawn and were then summarized by a leading author: 'The older authorities hold that such an owner has no private rights in the stream or body of water which are appurtenant to his land, and, in short, no rights beyond that of any other member of the public, and that the only difference is that he is more conveniently situated to enjoy the privileges which all the public have in common, and that he has access to the waters over his own land, which the public do not.' 'Access to and use of the stream by the riparian owner is regarded merely as permissive on the part of the public and liable to be cut off absolutely if the public sees fit to do so.' And he quoted another writer of standing: 'The owner of the bank has no jus privatum, or special unufructuary interest, in the water. He does not from the mere circumstance that he is the owner of the bank, acquire any special or particular interest in the stream, over any other member of the public, except that, by his proximity thereto, he enjoys greater conveniences than the public generally. To him, riparian ownership brings no greater rights than those incident to all the public, except that he can approach the waters more readily, and over lands which the general public have no right to use for that purpose. But this is a mere convenience, arising from his ownership of the lands adjacent to the ordinary high water mark, and does not prevent the State from depriving him entirely of this convenience, by itself making erections upon the shore, or authorizing the use of the shore by others, in such a way as to deprive him of this convenience altogether, and the injury resulting to him therefrom, although greater than that sustained by the rest of the public, is damnum absque injuria.' On the other hand, the author pointed out, there were cases holding that the riparian owners on navigable streams 'have valuable rights appurtenant to their estates, of which they cannot be deprived without compensation.' He considered this the better rule, and suggested that the courts indicated some tendency to adopt it.

However, in 1913 this Court decided United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Co., 229 U.S. 53, 33 S.Ct. 667, 57 L.Ed. 1063. It involved the claim that water power inherent in a navigable stream due to its fall in passing riparian lands belongs to the shore owner as an appurtenant to his lands. The Court set aside questions as to the right of riparian owners on non-navigable streams and all questions as to the rights of riparian owners on either navigable or non-navigable streams as between each other. And it laid aside as irrelevant whether the shore owner did or did not have a technical title to the bed of the river which would pass with it 'as a shadow follows a substance.' It declared that 'In neither event can there be said to arise any ownership of the river. Ownership of a private stream wholly upon the lands of an individual is conceivable; but that the running water in a great navigable stream is capable of private ownership is inconceivable.' 229 U.S. at pages 62, 69, 33 S.Ct. at pages 671, 674, 57 L.Ed. 1063. This Court then took a view quite in line with the trend of former decisions there reviewed, that a strategic position for the development of power does not give rise to right to maintain it as against interference by the United States in aid of navigation. We have adhered to that position. United States v. Appalachian Electric Power Co., 311 U.S. 377, 424, 61 S.Ct. 291, 307, 85 L.Ed. 243. The Chandler-Dunbar case held that the shore owner had no appurtenant property right in two natural levels of water in front of its lands or to the use of the natural difference between as a head for power production. In this case the claimant asserts a similar right to one natural level in front of his lands and a right of ownership in the difference between that and the artificial level of the impounded water of the Willow River. It constituted a privilege or a convenience, enjoyed for many years, permissible so long as compatible with navigation interests, but it is not an interest protected by law when it becomes inconsistent with plans authorized by Congress for improvement of navigation.

It is conceded that the riparian owner has no right as against improvements of navigation to maintenance of a level below highwater mark, but it is claimed that there is a riparian right to use the stream for run-off of water at this level. High-water mark bounds the bed of the river. Lands above it are fast lands and to flood them is a taking for which compensation must be paid. But the award here does not purport to compensate a flooding of fast lands or impairment of their value. Lands below that level are subject always to a dominant servitude in the interests of navigation and its exercise calls for no compensation. United States v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P.R. Co., 312 U.S. 592, 313 U.S. 543, 61 S.Ct. 772, 85 L.Ed. 1064; Willink v. United States, 240 U.S. 572, 36 S.Ct. 422, 60 L.Ed. 808. The damage here is that the water claimant continues to bring onto its lands through an artificial canal from the Willow River has to leave its lands at an elevation of 675 instead of an elevation of 672 feet. No case is cited and we find none which holds a riparian owner on navigable waters to have such a legal right. The Cress case which the Court of Claims relied upon does not so hold and does not govern here.

Rights, property or otherwise, which are absolute against all the world are certainly rare, and water rights are not among them. Whatever rights may be as between equals such as riparian owners, they are not the measure of riparian rights on a navigable stream relative to the function of the Government in improving navigation. Where these interests conflict they are not to be reconciled as between equals, but the private interest must give way to a superior right, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that as against the Government such private interest is not a right at all.

Operations of the Government in aid of navigation ofttimes inflict serious damage or inconvenience or interfere with advantages formerly enjoyed by riparian owners, but damage alone gives courts no power to require compensation where there is not an actual taking of property. Cf. Gibson v. United States, 166 U.S. 269, 17 S.Ct. 578, 41 L.Ed. 996; Scranton v. Wheeler, 179 U.S. 141, 21 S.Ct. 48, 45 L.Ed. 126; Bedford v. United States, 192 U.S. 217, 24 S.Ct. 238, 48 L.Ed. 414; Jackson v. United States, 230 U.S. 1, 33 S.Ct. 1011, 57 L.Ed. 1363; Hughes v. United States, 230 U.S. 24, 33 S.Ct. 1019, 57 L.Ed. 1374, 46 L.R.A.,N.S., 624; Cubbins v. Mississippi River Commission, 241 U.S. 351, 36 S.Ct. 671, 60 L.Ed. 1041. Such losses may be compensated by legislative authority, not by force of the Constitution alone.

The uncompensated damages sustained by this riparian owner on a public waterway are not different from those often suffered without indemnification by owners abutting on public highways by land. It has been held in nearly every state in the Union that 'there can be no recovery for damages to abutting property resulting from a mere change of grade in the street in front of it, there being no physical injury to the property itself, and the change being authorized by law.' This appears to be the law of Wisconsin. Smith v. City of Eau Claire, 78 Wis. 457, 47 N.W. 830; Walish v. City of Milwaukee, 95 Wis. 16, 69 N.W. 818; McCullough v. Campbellsport, 123 Wis. 334, 101 N.W. 709; cf. Smith v. Washington, 20 How. 135, 15 L.Ed. 858; Northern Transportation Co. v. City of Chicago, 99 U.S. 635, 25 L.Ed. 336. It would be strange if the State of Wisconsin is free to raise an adjacent land highway without compensation but the United States may not exercise an analogous power to raise a highway by water without making compensation where neither takes claimant's lands, but each cuts off access to and use of a natural level.

We hold that claimant's interest or advantage in the highwater level of the St. Croix River as a run-off for tail waters to maintain its power head is not a right protected by law and that the award below based exclusively on the loss in value thereof must be reversed.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice REED concurs in the result on the ground that the United States has not taken property of the respondent.