## Facts

- Private landowners owned tracts in Day and Clark Counties that historically were used for farming and grazing and included areas that were sometimes swampy or had standing water.
- Federal land surveys in the 1870s did not meander Long Lake, Parks Slough, or Schiley Slough; the areas were included in patents to private owners because they were then small, shallow, or likely to dry.
- In the late 1990s and early 2000s, unusually wet conditions caused rainfall and snowmelt to flood and enlarge these areas into substantial lakes over privately owned land.
- The enlarged waters attracted public recreational use, including fishing and hunting.
- The landowners filed a declaratory-judgment action and sought an injunction against state officials and members of the public, asserting that both the lakebeds and the overlying waters were private and that they could exclude public users.
- The circuit court declared both the land and the water private and enjoined public access.
- State officials and public users appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether water standing over non-meandered, privately owned lakebeds created or enlarged by flooding is privately controlled by the landowners or publicly owned under South Dakota law.
2. Whether the lakebeds and the water above them can be treated as separate property interests, with private ownership of the soil but public ownership of the water.
3. Whether an injunction barring public use of the lakes conflicts with the public trust doctrine and South Dakota statutes governing water.

## Decision

- The South Dakota Supreme Court reversed the circuit court and remanded.
- The court held that, although the lakebeds were mostly privately owned, the water in the lakes is public.
- The court concluded that South Dakota law recognizes separate interests in the bed and the water: private title to the soil does not confer ownership of the water resting upon it.
- The broad injunction treating the water as private and barring public access was inconsistent with the State’s public ownership of water and was therefore improper.

## Legal Principles

- Under South Dakota law, the waters of the state are owned by the people; private parties may obtain only legally authorized rights of use, subject to legislative direction and state regulation.
- The public trust doctrine applies to state waters and obligates the State to hold and manage them for public uses, including recreation such as fishing and related activities.
- Ownership of a non-meandered lakebed (including land conveyed by federal patent) does not determine ownership of water; state sovereignty and state water law govern the status and use of water.
- Public waters may be devoted to public use and appropriated only as permitted by statute and regulation; questions of management and practical access are primarily addressed through the political branches and administering agencies, not through a decree declaring the water private.

## Conclusion

The court held that waters covering privately owned, non-meandered lakebeds are public under South Dakota’s public trust doctrine and statutes, reversing an injunction that treated the lakes as wholly private and remanding for proceedings consistent with public ownership and regulatory control of the water.


Parks v. Cooper, 676 N.W.2d 823 (S.D. 2004)