## Facts

- Appalachian Electric Power Company planned to construct and operate a hydroelectric dam on the New River near Radford, Virginia.
- The United States sought to enjoin the project unless the company obtained a federal license from the Federal Power Commission (FPC).
- The regulatory setting included the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 (requiring federal consent for dams in navigable waters) and the Federal Water Power Act of 1920 (authorizing the FPC to license hydroelectric projects and to determine whether projects on non-navigable streams would affect interstate or foreign commerce).
- The company’s predecessor filed a declaration of intention with the FPC; the dispute centered on whether the relevant segment of the New River was a “navigable water of the United States” and, if so, whether federal authority could condition or prohibit the dam.
- Evidence addressed the river’s physical characteristics, historical and existing uses (including small-craft use and timber floating), and the feasibility of making the river more serviceable for navigation through improvements.

## Issues

1. Whether the segment of the New River from Allisonia, Virginia, to Hinton, West Virginia, is a “navigable water of the United States” for federal regulatory purposes.
2. If the river is navigable, whether Congress may require an FPC license and impose conditions on a hydroelectric dam even when the project’s purpose is power generation rather than facilitating navigation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit and remanded.
- The Court held the relevant segment of the New River is a navigable water of the United States.
- The Court held Congress may require a federal license for the construction and maintenance of a dam in navigable waters, even if the structure’s sole purpose is hydroelectric power generation.
- The Court determined it was not bound by the lower courts’ concurrent findings on navigability because the conclusion of navigability involves legal standards applied to specific facts.

## Legal Principles

- A waterway is a navigable water of the United States if, by reasonable improvements, it can be made available for navigation in interstate commerce, considering a balance of cost and need at a time when the improvement would be useful.
- Navigability does not require that improvements have already been made, completed, or authorized.
- A waterway does not lose its navigable character because commercial navigation has diminished or ceased.
- A river may be navigable for only part of its course.
- The absence of present commercial traffic is not dispositive; private or personal boating use may show capacity for simpler forms of commercial navigation.
- Congress’s authority over navigable waters, grounded in the Commerce Clause, is not confined to protecting navigation; it extends as broadly as the needs of commerce, permitting Congress to forbid obstructions or allow them on conditions it sets.
- Federal licensing and conditions for structures in navigable waters are valid even if they incidentally touch matters commonly associated with state police power.

## Conclusion

The Court treated navigability as a functional standard that includes prospective use with reasonable improvements, and it upheld federal power to require and condition licensing of hydroelectric dams in navigable waters under Congress’s commerce authority.


United States v. Appalachian Elec. Power Co., 311 U.S. 377 (1940)