 Welcome to Caltrans LSIT LS exam preparation course. One aid in your preparation for California licensure examinations. A word of caution. Don't use this course as your only preparation. Devise and follow a regular schedule of study which begins months before the test. Work many problems in each area, not just those in this course's workbook, but problems from other sources as well. This course is funded by Caltrans, but you and I owe a profound thanks to others, the courses instructors from the academic community, the private sector, other public agencies, and from Caltrans as well. We wish you well in your study toward becoming a member of California's professional land surveying community. Hello. My name is Roy Minick, and I'm the supervisor of the Land Boundary Section for the California State Lands Commission. For the next hour, we're going to be talking about water boundary location. Now, property boundary location along waterways in California is neither certain nor predictable. Actually, each situation is settled on its own merit. However, there are guidelines. These guidelines are useful to those who are answering questions on land surveying examinations. This presentation will cover some basic concepts of property boundary location along waterways. Using these guidelines will not only provide a valuable test-taking aid, but also serve as an introductory foundation to the study and application beyond the examination and into real property boundary surveying. Now, as an overview for the next few minutes, our presentation is going to cover water boundary concepts, navigable and non-navigable waterways, title, TIDAL, title datums, and water boundaries, and factors affecting boundary location. And interlaced through all of these, we're going to talk about the methodology that can be used by surveyors and locating water boundaries. Property boundary location along waterways is probably the most complex of all property boundary location. Water lines naturally fluctuate, and so any boundary dependent on a fluctuating line must change. This is a natural breeding ground for litigation among littoral owners, that is, owners who own property along waterways. After all, a changing property line causes one person to lose and another to gain. As a result, courts that are rooted in English common law, dating back as far as William LaConquer in England, courts rooted in common law have often established precedents for riparian boundary location, and these precedents are based upon equity rather than upon a more precise and scientific location. In recent years, courts have modified some viewpoints and reversed itself on others. As a result, the law itself appears to be in confusion. So what's all that mean to the surveyor? How does a surveyor begin to understand riparian boundary location? Most importantly, what does a surveyor need to know to pass the land surveying examination? Fortunately, some basic principles can be offered. With these, even though the legal situation is confusing, the surveyor will be able to weave his way into boundary location along waterways. Now before the discussion of lateral ownership and boundaries can begin, some aspects of title have to be considered. As an introduction, we have to talk about title concepts. Boundary location along waterways is a marriage of four factors. The first one is land title and the underlying ownership in waterways. The second is navigable and non-navigable waterways. The third is title datums and water boundaries. And the fourth and final are the factors that affect property boundaries along waterways. Now the title, what about the land title, T-I-T-L-E? The land title held by owners of land along and underneath waterways. Land title in California is originally based upon the United States government. All title is based upon a sovereign and in the case of California, it's based upon the United States. United States as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican War in 1848, gained title to all of present-day California. It also provided title to the United States for Arizona, New Mexico, and other Southwestern states. As a part of this treaty, the title to lands owned by the Mexican citizens at the time the treaty was signed were confirmed. Generally these are called rancho lands or Mexican land grants. It's not correct to say Spanish land grants. Spain was run out of the picture in the early 1820s. They're Mexican land grants. If the rancho lands or the Mexican land grants included a waterway, then the title to lands underlying the waterways was confirmed to the rancho claimant as part of the patent. These waterways are usually shown without meanders on rancho patent maps. Except for navigable sovereign waterways and swamp and overflow grants, the remainder of the land became part of the United States public domain and was surveyed by public lands surveyors. Ultimately the lands were sold from the township plots that resulted from the surveys. Now, waterways, lakes, rivers, some slews are examples. Waterways that appeared to the United States deputy surveyor that appeared to the surveyor substantial enough to be used for a variety of purposes among which were commerce navigation and fisheries were not included within the public lands. On the illustration on the board, on the monitor you can see an example of lands, the public lands and where they were meandered along waterways. Now the uplands were, the uplands, the public lands were meandered. The meander was not intended to be a boundary line. As a matter of fact, the meander was only a surveyors device for determining acreage on the upland. After all, land was bought by so much, so many dollars per acre, the price per acre. The meander line has nothing to do with property boundaries. When someone took title from the United States, they purchased so many acres and the title extended to the water line, extended to the water line. As we shall see, this could come to more or less than the amount that was purchased because you remember we're talking about water lines, that is lines that fluctuate. So the actual boundary line may be seen today, gone tomorrow. Now various manuals of instructions for surveys of the public lands gave different instructions about placing the meander line. Generally, this was near the high water mark or the edge of vegetation. This varied from manual of instruction to manual of instruction. The important fact for us to remember here is that the lands that in the view of the deputy surveyor were suitable for commerce, navigation and fisheries, that is as public highways, those lands were segregated from the public lands. They were not sold. They became part of state-owned lands, lands which the public has an interest in for a variety of uses, commerce, navigation, fisheries, recreational uses. Now generally, lands underneath waterways that were navigable in the eyes of the deputy surveyor were generally meandered and they weren't sold as part of the public domain. These were the sovereign lands that became the state property upon entry to the Union of United States. Now new states such as California in 1850, September 9th, 1850, new states entered on an equal footing with the original states. This so-called equal footing doctrine and the source of this title is the act of admission to the Union. Unlike other property in California, there is no patent from the United States or even a description of these sovereign lands. There are several thousand miles of boundary and millions of acres of land that have no document source of title. Sovereign lands in addition are burdened by a trust on behalf of the general public. California has not sold any of its sovereign lands since a constitutional prohibition early in the 20th century. Some state patents, however, were issued to tidelands both on the open coast and tidal bays. The monitor shows an example of tidelands in a bay situation such as San Francisco. There were also some sales made in the San Francisco Bay Area by a so-called board of tideland commissioners. These, while interesting, are usually not part of a Landseveres examination, perhaps because they are very site-specific and little is generally known about them, except among a few boundary specialists. Now, what about swamp and overflowed lands? That's another category of land which lies along a water course. Swamp and overflowed lands, while not sovereign, generally lay between the United States public domain and the ordinary high water mark. These were segregated from the public lands one of two ways. The monitor shows the two ways. First, if an entire township that is a township of land which contains 36 square miles, an entire township, or even three-quarters of the township, was considered swamp and overflowed lands, that is, it was land which could not be cultivated without some sort of reclamation or drainage work, then the entire township was considered to be swamp and overflowed lands. The other method, when perhaps half or less of one of these townships contained swamp and overflowed lands, the lands would be segregated and they would appear on a map or a plant very similar to a meander line. They were simply segregated from the public lands. Now, these swamp lands were a grant, a separate grant from the United States to the States in late September 1850, just a couple of weeks after California became a state, the Swamp Land, the Arkansas Swamp Land Act was passed and this operated as a grant of millions of acres of land from the federal government to the United States. It was an early-day reclamation act, if you will. The land was granted to the States. In general, the county surveyors surveyed the lands and entered a patent or entered a request for a patent to the state surveyor, the state surveyor of California. Up until the early 1920s, the state surveyor of California was an elected constitutional officer like the Lieutenant Governor or the Governor. Now, when these swamp and overflowed lands were surveyed, they were surveyed in odd-sized parcels and they were surveyed by meats and bounds. They were not surveyed by aliquo parts. They were surveyed by meats and bounds and from the standpoint of a land surveyors' examination, the swamp and overflowed lands survey should be considered as meats and bounds surveys, that is, sequence conveyances, conveyances in which there can be junior and senior rights. Swamp lands occur all throughout the state of California. Most of the Sacramento, San Joaquin Delta were considered and segregated as swamp lands. Find swamp lands in Lake Tahoe, in Clear Lake, along the rivers. Anywhere where this Reclamation Act wanted to operate. The reason we lumped them in with water boundaries to steady is that they fall between the public lands and the high water or the waterway. Now, to summarize, land beneath waterways may be owned by the adjacent upland owner or it may be owned by the state. Sources of title found along waterways are, 1. Lands confirmed to Mexican citizens that may or may not include the waterway. 2. United States public lands that normally don't include a navigable waterway. 3. Swamp and overflowed lands granted from the United States to the state who subsequently patented these to individuals. And 4 and most important for the remainder of our discussion, lands that the state acquired as a sovereign. Tide lands, submerged lands, lands in the bed of natural navigable lakes, bays, slews and rivers. Law, both common and statutory, that may be generally applicable on a state or national basis or applicable on a specific water body or even a specific site along a shore are important for us to steady here. Statute law in California provides some guidance but it is not conclusive. It is not conclusive, certainly not as conclusive as many surveyors would like. Certainly not conclusive enough for people taking an exam. But because statute law leaves many unanswered questions in any given situation, courts of law have traditionally been the arena for settling disputes. Now some state statute law provisions applicable to water boundaries are and probably the most important one is section 830 of the California Civil Code. It reads, except where a grant under which the land is held indicates a different intent, the owner of the upland, when it borders on tide water, takes to the ordinary high water mark. When it borders on a navigable lake or stream where there is no tide, the owner takes to the edge of the stream or lake at low water mark. When it borders upon any other water, the owner takes to the thread of a lake or stream. In your exam preparation, that's probably one of the single most important code sections that you need to have a copy of and to recite as you take the examination. Much the same thing is noted in section 670 of the Civil Code. That has to do with ownership in the state. It uses the same terminology for boundary lines. Slightly different, but essentially the same is section 2077 of the Code of Civil Procedure. This is defined as construing land descriptions. You will need this for the test, this section not only for water boundaries but to give you guidance in writing land descriptions or any of the other types of exercises that may be required at the exam. Now, section 101 through 107 in the Harbors and Navigation Code is a piece of evidence that recites waterways that may be navigable. That is sovereign and hence owned by the state. Regrettably, it's a regulatory provision and does not specifically carry a substantial amount of weight and so far as evidence is concerned to determine whether a water boundary or whether a water body is navigable and sovereign or whether it's non-navigable. Harbors and Navigation Code as an example lists specific waterways and the extent of navigability at the time the statutes were enacted which were in the period from 1850 through 1870s. Just to read from one, for example, the following streams and water are also navigable in public ways. Deer Creek, between its mouth and the house of Peter Lassen. Devil's Slew, lying within the corporate limits of the city of San Jose. As the section explains, these are for regulatory provisions to keep avenues of commerce open. However, they do provide and are suggestive of the navigability of a waterway at the time the statute was enacted. Several other statute laws exist and they'll be introduced further into the discussion. In general, California water boundaries are consistent with common law court decisions hammered on the anvil of history for the last 500 years beginning in England through the original 13 colonies who became 13 sovereign states who finally became a nation and lastly admitted all new states such as California on an equal footing with the original states. Now, we've talked about navigable and non-navigable waterways. What about, how do you tell the difference? How do we tell whether a waterway is navigable or not? First, actual uses. Actual uses determine the title and boundary law that will be applied to each specific waterway or water body. All tide water, all tide water that is lands subject to daily tides, all tide water belongs to the state of California as sovereign unless it was sold during one of these periods of sales in the latter part of the 19th century. The boundary between the uplands and the state is an ordinary high watermark. All navigable tidal waterways are bounded by the ordinary high watermark. We'll talk a little bit later about how and what the ordinary high watermark is. The boundary between fee tidal that is absolute tidal, absolute tidal of the upland owners and the state along non-tidal but navigable waterways is the ordinary low watermark. You'll see on the monitor, the previous slide on the monitor showed a breakdown between navigable and non-navigable waterways. We'll have an opportunity to look at that again. An example of this type waterways are Lake Tahoe, the Sacramento River, between the head of tide and the head of navigation. An easement allowing public use burdens a strip between the ordinary high water and the ordinary low watermark. We find this along non-navigable or non-tidal but navigable waterways. Descriptions that a surveyor prepares in an examination or elsewhere. Descriptions and maps need to make reference to this easement between ordinary high and ordinary low watermark as with any other easement. It should be treated as any other easement. Now, another factor in determining navigability is physical science, the effect of rainstorms. The effect of rainstorms, wet seasons, dry seasons and the years of ordinary rainfall. If you notice our water boundaries use the term ordinary. This is a legal term, ordinary, not in a period of drought and not in a period of flood, but in ordinary periods. We're talking means and averages here. Waterways may shift sometimes naturally and sometimes very suddenly and sometimes from human activities such as building breakwaters, landfilling or occasionally diversion of the waterway for irrigation or agricultural purposes. Boundary law considers averages. On the tidelands, for example, averages are broken into approximately 18.6 years. This is called a tidal epoch, E-P-O-C-H. And tide heights that are used for boundaries are averages over periods of time within a tidal epoch. With rivers, on the other hand, in areas where the state is the sovereign and there is no tide, the high and low periods are considered. Western rivers, for example, would dry up during the summer and have long periods of flood season during the winter. And so how do we come up with an ordinary high or low watermark along a non-tidal but navigable waterway? Whatever the decision is reached, it usually involves a study of rainfall, wet seasons and dry seasons. Now, navigable and non-navigable waterways. The beds of non-tidal, non-navigable waterways belong to the adjacent upland owner. The beds of navigable waterways belong to the state. How do we determine navigability? Navigability is determined by law, but factors that go into the law to determine a body of water and its navigability are first actual use. Is the body of water in its natural condition usable as a highway for commerce, navigation and fisheries? Did it exist on September 9th, 1850, when California entered the Union? After all, if we're admitted on an equal footing, we as Californians, if we're admitted on an equal footing, then the date of statehood is an important date in determining water boundaries. Determines whether the water body existed in a state of nature at that time. If it did, it could very well be navigable. Artificial bodies like reservoirs do not fit this criteria, and so are not sovereign lands. As a matter of fact, we can consider water bodies such as reservoirs any more on this discussion. Traditionally, a waterway is considered navigable when at the time of statehood, the water body was used for commerce, navigation and fisheries. From a title standpoint, TITLE, from a title standpoint, it doesn't matter if the waterway supports these uses now. That's peculiarity of California water boundary law, but nonetheless, it's important and essential for someone preparing for the Land Survey's exam to be aware of. For example, the San Joaquin River is navigable for land title purposes as far as the Old Fort site at Millerton, which is now under the waters behind Friant Dam. That's well up into the foothills. If you were to drive across the San Joaquin River most of the time now, you would say, how could this be a navigable river? There's no water in it. Our definition is, was it natural and navigable at the time of entry into the Union? And up until a point where an artificial influence caused a diversion or change in the natural regime of the water body. Unlike any other state in the Union, California follows the last natural rule. The boundary along, for example, the San Joaquin River is at the last natural location of the river just prior to closing the dam and drawing down the water that would naturally flow down the river and use it for irrigation. In effect, property lines along waterways in California become frozen at that last natural location, regardless of whether they're even near the water now. In recent court decrees, beginning with Marx versus Whitney in 1970 at Tamali's Bay case, the allowable uses have been expanded from the traditional commerce navigation and fisheries. They've been included to expand recreational uses, such as recreational fishing, recreational boating, or, in the words of the court, almost any other use that the public wishes to make of a water body. Scuba snorkeling, any uses like this that the public may wish to use. Another factor in navigability, determining whether the state owns the better the waterway or not, is susceptibility to navigation. If, at the time of statehood, a water body existed but was not used or perhaps is not yet used for public uses, commerce, navigation, fishery, or recreational uses, if it has never been used but is susceptible to being used, then it's considered a navigable waterway. Donner Lake is an example. Northern California. Lake Tahoe, which everyone viewing this video will probably know where it is, especially if you watch Bonanza TV shows. During the early part of the 1850s, Lake Tahoe was not navigated. It wasn't until the 1860s, 70s, and 80s that any sort of commercial uses were made of the lake. River packets, mail boats, and so on running from north to south like Tahoe. So it was susceptible to navigation that entire time. There are a period of perhaps, there are a series of perhaps, oh, 30 lakes in the Sierra that fall into this category of susceptibility. About six or seven months ago, the susceptibility provision was carried to even a further extent in a case in Alaska where if the water body was susceptible to floating a toothpick, it was a navigable waterway. Now, it doesn't take much water to float a toothpick so you can see how in over 150 years the definition of navigability has been broadened to include a much wider possible uses. Now, what's the effect of navigability on property boundaries? Well, first of all, the beds of non-navigable water bodies belong to the adjacent upland owners. The underlying fee ownership belongs to the adjacent upland owners. You can look at it much as you would a street or an alley that would be vacated. The reversionary rights, in fact, for the examination purposes, the situation of non-navigable waterways can be looked at much like streets. You've got to apportion the reversionary interest. An ongoing process right now in California is Mono Lake. The lake is gradually drying up and lands are being apportioned among the adjacent upland owners. It's not a navigable lake. So look at reversion rights in much the same way as you would the reversion of streets and the solution in test-taking situations is to develop an apportionment that will equitably distribute the body of water. In most survey textbooks, the general textbooks like surveying by Muschard and Moffat, Davis and Foote, surveying Therian practice, these books will cover two classical methods for dividing up water bodies. One of them is called the pie method, where it's simply like at the pie shop you can have a piece of pie. You slice the pie up into seven or eight pieces. And the other one is the long lake method. Both of these are found on the sketch at the back of the section on water boundary location. The long lake method is one which is used. In the boundary law books that you will be studying for the examination, probably the best treatment on water boundaries is found in boundary control and legal principles by Brown, Robillard and Wilson. Almost as good is the treatment in Clark on surveying boundaries. Now, along the navigable water bodies, the land belongs to the state. For property boundary surveyors, as well as those who want to be property boundary surveyors, the determination of navigability is crucial to the delineation of the property line of the client, whether it's the state or a private owner. It is typically not included in the deed by description, although some mention of the water body may be made, such as a lake, such as to the shores of Lake Tahoe, thence along the lake, or to the shore of the Sacramento River, thence along said river, or to the shore of the Pacific Ocean, thence along some Pacific Ocean. It is typically not included in the description by other than general terms. There is not a list of waterways in California that are navigable. Regrettably, no one has ever gotten around to compiling one. It takes years to determine whether a body of water is navigable or not. What's necessary is the broad knowledge of common law and the specific knowledge of recent case law and using statute as guidelines. Now, you need to observe on the sketch one of the aspects, the one that's on the monitor, or in your notebook, either one, at the point where tide water changes, tide water ceases, and the waterway is still navigable. At that point, the boundary shifts from high water to low water. Boundaries along navigable rivers, lakes, and streams is the ordinary low watermark. Now, ordinary means not in a period of drought and not in a period of flood. A river, for example, can be dry part of the year and still be a navigable river for land title purposes. The problem is to determine how that boundary is to be located on the ground. It isn't enough just to say ordinary low watermark. What is the ordinary low watermark? How is it to be located and how is it to be described by the surveyor? This is the meat of professional practice and the grist for examinations. Now, each case is treated differently. Some examples, Clear Lake. It's a large lake in northern California with 115 miles of shoreline. In that case, the boundary line has been established as zero on a so-called Rumsey Gauge. Rumsey Gauge has an NGVD elevation of 1318.63 feet. It's above sea level, roughly. Just recently, Lake Tahoe has had an ordinary high and a low watermark elevation decreed as the boundary. The San Joaquin River is undergoing a steady now. Perhaps in a few years, we'll have some information for surveyors along the San Joaquin River. Now, as mentioned previously, an easement burdens property between the high and low watermark in non-title but navigable waterways. The ordinary low watermark is a line which broadly defined as the lowest point which the body of water will go in an ordinary year. In lakes, this is usually controlled by a spillway or a natural rim. Now, the surveyor needs to consider this easement that lies between the high and low watermark. It needs to consider it as an easement. It needs to be described separately on a land description. If you're asked to prepare a description that involves a water boundary on the exam, then, by all means, deal with the easement between high and low water on non-title but navigable waterways. Now, the boundary along tidal waterways is the ordinary high watermark, ordinary high waterline. Sometimes, it's referred to as the ordinary high tide line, the ordinary mean high watermark, or the ordinary high tide line. Legally, it is referred to as the ordinary high watermark. And in an exam situation, you really should refer to it as the ordinary high watermark. This covers the area along the Pacific Ocean. It covers bays, inlets, estuaries, and rivers. As far inland as maybe tidal. On rivers, we have a particular problem. A particular uncertainty is introduced with the boundary changing from high to low when tidal wind fluence ends. If you'll think of a river, for example, it seasonally fluctuates. A lot more water comes down in the spring. Consequently, the tidal barrier is moved farther out down towards the mouth of the river. That point where high and low water changes insofar as the surveyor is concerned, moves up and down the river with the season. Obviously, it makes it very difficult for the surveyor to apply precise technical survey principles. For test purposes, how are we going to handle that? For test purposes, it is important to know that the feed tidal boundary changes when tide water ceases. And in some fashion, depending on the nature of the question, in some fashion work or factor that information into your answer. Now, along the ocean, along the Pacific Ocean, the ordinary high water mark may be located as either a mean high tide line or an ordinary high water mark. Why do we have two? Why do we have two terms? Well, one is a scientifically repeatable line and the other one is a legal boundary. The mean high tide line is a scientifically repeatable line. Ordinary high water mark is a legal boundary and it is used when the shoreline is in an artificial condition and the last natural water line is the boundary. Title datums, title datums, title datums and water boundaries. The mean high tide line is an elevation contour and it can be duplicated at any time by a surveyor using proper information. It may or may not be the boundary line in California. The mean high tide line may or may not be the boundary line. It is the boundary line in the event that the shoreline is natural. It's fluctuating naturally. Title datums in California. What kind of title datums do we have? Do we have just one? Do we have only the mean high tide line? No. We have a series of title datums beginning from the so-called baselines for our nautical charts at the mean lower low water line. We have mean high tide line, mean high water line. These are all at a vertical distance above mean lower low water. Submerged lands on the west coast of the United States, submerged lands begin at the mean lower low water and extend three geographic miles into the ocean. Certain islands in this three-mile belt, certain islands have a three-mile belt around them. Santa Catalina Island is an example. There's a three-mile belt around Santa Catalina Island so that state lands are actually in cases 27, 25 miles from the shore. Certain other situations occur, which is important and occurs on a land severity exam periodically, and that is a rock awash. What is a rock awash? A rock awash is a rock that surfaces between the mean lower low water and the mean high water. It surfaces. It's awash during the period when the tides are moving up and down within the tidal range. Sometimes this is only a rock. That's why it's called the rock awash theory. A rock awash lying within two miles of the coast in itself has a three-mile boundary, a three-mile belt around it. We say belt because measured from the baseline from geographic points, there are a series of envelopes or arcs that are described that are three miles from these points. This is the offshore boundary for land tidal purposes for the state of California. United States rights go out as far as the United States might carries and these involve fishing rights out to 12, 24, and 30 miles and beyond. For land tidal purposes, the three-mile boundary is the boundary of the state of California that's measured from the baseline called the mean lower low water mark. Now how do we treat bays? We have closed bays such as San Francisco Bay which have a line drawn from headland to headland and this line is a baseline for the three-mile offshore belt. In other areas such as Santa Monica Bay, it's considered an open bay and it's treated as the open ocean. But Monterey Bay has a baseline drawn across it and from headland to headland in a three-mile boundary is measured from the baseline. You say why does anybody care? Not much for the land severity examination standpoint but it means an awful lot in terms of tidal lands oil revenue or offshore oil revenue. You see that in the news often times. Who gets the billions of dollars from Tideland's oil? Now our tidelands run from the high water line to the lower low water line. These are so-called tidelands, lands with which the tides cover and uncover daily. They run from a high water line to the low water line. Now our tides in California are a mixed type of tides. We have two high tides and two low tides every day and over a monthly cycle the high tides get higher and the low tides get lower and so if that's the case how can we locate that line on the ground? No we don't. If you'll notice the terminology is mean high water and mean high tide line. We are averaging the daily tides over a period of at least 30 days and hopefully as long as an 18.6 year tidal epoch. Now where does the survey refine this information? What are you going to say in an examination? Well the National Geodetic Survey operates a tidal benchmark program. Tidal observations are made at numerous stations along the California coast. They're more numerous as funds permit and less numerous when funds dry up. But we have a network of tidal observation stations throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and along the open ocean and in most of the bays in California. San Francisco, San Diego, Bolinas Bay, Humboldt Bay. All of these areas have their own tidal benchmarks and they simply record the rise and follow the tide. And the machine that keeps the information provides the heights reached and these are then averaged. In a 30 day series of observations they're averaged over 30 days and then compared to stations of longer duration. For example the station at Golden Gate has been in existence since 1848. It has numerous tidal epochs. And each tidal epoch will cause a change of perhaps a tenth of a foot in vertical distance. It's important for the surveyor in taking a test to understand that if the boundary line is the mean high tide line the information that he will be given is tidal benchmark information which will be measured from the mean lower low water line. NGVD National Geodetic Survey tidal benchmark information is measured from the mean lower low water line data. But land surveyors use elevations above sea level. How do we equate the two? In a test situation that information will be provided to you. In a real life situation you simply look it up or call either the State Lands Commission or the National Geodetic Survey in Washington DC. They will equate the elevations above sea level that is above NGVD to the mean lower low water mark tidal datum. Now once the elevation is determined once the elevation is determined for the boundary line the surveying is simple. All that's necessary is to run a contour in the ground by whatever means that the surveyor would typically run a contour. For example, if we have a mean high water line that's two feet above NGVD then the surveyor simply runs either by transit stadia by aerial photography by any number of means runs a contour on the ground. You have to remember that water boundaries particularly where they are shifting naturally will shift with time, hourly and daily. Most of the people, most of you viewing this will have stood along the beach in the surf and felt the sand go out from under your feet in just a matter of moments. If you think about it, that's the elevation and the elevation is changing that rapidly and so is the location of the boundary line the mean high tide line on the surface of the earth. In some parts of the state the difference between the mean high tide line even though it's a constant contour the difference between a winter beach and a summer beach is as much as five to six hundred feet. Still the same contour remember it is still the same contour the same elevation above sea level or above mean lower low water. Now how do we reconcile legal terminology with scientific methodology? Remember that the mean high tide line is a repeatable line. We can go out and locate that contour on the surface at any time but in the legal arena the ordinary high watermark is the boundary. The ordinary high watermark and the mean high tide line are the same as long as the beach is in a natural condition. If the beach is not in a natural condition that is it ceases to fluctuate daily and hourly then the ordinary high watermark is the boundary and as we mentioned earlier that's the last natural location. Along the beach it's the last natural location of the mean high tide line. Now what do we do about a non-tidal non-navigable waterway? We've talked somewhat about that how we locate boundaries along non-tidal lakes and rivers. We have to divide the bodies of water in an equitable fashion. Insofar as swamp lands are concerned these we consider as meats and bounds conveyances and they will fall between the public lands and the mean high tide line and the descriptions themselves and the descriptions themselves are not specific. In fact because of the nature of the land when the lands were surveyed swamp and overflowed lands they were subject to reclamation no surveyors going to walk around in the mud in the muck so no monuments were set. These present a very difficult problem for land surveyors. Insofar as a test is concerned you need to remember that they were meats and bounds conveyances they lie between the high and the low between the public lands and the high watermark and you find them throughout the state not just along oceans or the delta. Now what are some of the factors that affect property boundaries along waterways? Well first is accretion and erosion is accretion and erosion. Accretion when land builds up imperceptibly over a period of time it accretes to the upland owner. It's one of the things one of the rights that makes water property valuable. Accretion is slow and imperceptible buildup of land. Another term for that is alluvium you'll see that often times instead of the term accretion but the two are synonymous for our purposes. Erosion the gradual and imperceptible removal of property on the uplands and it becomes inodated by water. The land owner loses in this case it's one of the hazards of owning property along waterways you stand both to gain through accretion natural processes of slow buildup and you stand to lose in the event that there's a slow eroding or wearing away of your property. It's a common law principle embraced by California. Now what about its effect on property lines? We have a case of a river for example that erodes away over a period of time a period of some years erodes away some property and then the river moves back almost into its earlier location. When the water moves back does the previous lot such as lot M and N does the lot reemerge or is the title extinguished forever? After all erosion eroded away all of the land formally described as lot M or N and then suddenly the river changes its course and moves backwards. What happens to the title? Was it extinguished or could it reemerge? Now we have no answer for that some states in the union and some common law principles embrace the title of reemergence. Others in other states embrace the opposite that the title is extinguished and that as the river moves back it accretes to the new upland. Now the next major factor that we need to consider very quickly for land surveying examinations is the evulsive change. For example, if a waterway is cut off by whatever reason a sudden act an evulsive act, sudden and perceptible the opposite of accretion and erosion the water line becomes frozen in its last natural location. In the event of an abandon or in the event of a cut off elbow in the river very common in rivers in California if the elbow is cut off by an evulsive change the boundary line remains frozen in its last natural location. The state sovereign interest is in its last natural location. This is a frequently asked question on the LSIT and land surveyors exam particularly on the land surveyors exam so you need to be aware that in California we use an evulsive act an artificiality as a boundary factor and that the boundary becomes frozen in its last natural location. Now we've covered here very briefly some things that I hope will cover will help you steady. There are several other books that may be of interest to you several are fairly recent and are not included on the list. One of these is a land surveyor with reference manual authored by Arben Buckner. It's nearly a 500 page book and covers every topic which you're going to be talking about in these various presentations. Another one if you need to know a little bit more about title benchmarks and how to locate for a short period of time in an area where there may not be a title benchmark you need to look at surveying civil engineers by Kassam. It's a McGraw-Hill publication and can be used for that. It's the only book that I know of in the market that talks about how to do a short series of observations and relate these observations to NGV title benchmark information. Now also remember one last thing and that is that senior grants that is rancher land grants if they included the waterway the waterway was not sovereign lands it was even though it was navigable and could be used by boats it was not sovereign land for land title purposes. The reason for this is that the rancher was a senior grant. Now with that we could probably talk a lot more hours but you need to get to studying now and I thank you for your attention. Goodbye and good luck.