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Show MARYLAND 375 The 1862 law, enlarging common law rights of riparian owners on navigable streams, contained three sections relating to accretions and to filling or wharfing-out.15 Over the years, court decisions evidenced considerable confusion over the interpretation of these provisions. The 1970 Wetlands Act abolished these sections and substituted the following provision.16 The owner of land bounding on navigable waters shall be entitled to all natural accretions to said land and to make improvements into the waters in front of said land for the purposes of preserving his access to navigable water or for protecting his shore against erosion. After an improvement has been constructed, it shall become the property of the owner of the land to which it is attached. None of the rights covered under this section shall exclude the owner from developing other uses as approved by the Board of Public Works. (Emphasis added.) The above section clearly gives riparians limited improvement privileges which do not include landfilling. The recent case of Board of Public Works v. Larmar Corp.17 con- tains an extensive review of the history of these statutes and resolves many of the current legal problems with reference to State wetlands. It held that the 1862 act not only gave riparians on navigable streams title to land acquired by natural accretion or reliction but also per- mitted them to acquire additional land by artificial landfilling in front of their lands, subject only to the limitation that navigation could not be obstrutced. These latter rights, resting as they do upon judicial interpretation of an ambiguous statute, had been character- ized by Professor Power as "judge-made riparian rights."18 The Court acknowledged this, and held that constitutional protection should therefore be extended only to such rights as riparians actually exercised on or before July 1, 1970, when the Wetlands Act abolished the acquisition of title through artificial filling. The recognition by the Court of the distinction between used and unused riparian rights is an indication that the Court will probably also conclude that the permit statute of 1934 preserved only those riparian rights in use prior to Januaiy 1, 1934. The decision also makes clear that any reclamation of State wetlands after the effec- tive date of the act can only be accomplished after acquiring a permit from the Board of Public Works, as provided in the statute. The decision also deals with other matters which are primarily of local interest: the concurrent jurisdiction of the Board of Public Works and Worcester County under special acts of legislature, and w The two sections are quoted here so that they may be compared with the new sec- tion quoted in the text to note 16. The ambiguities in these sections are carefully analyzed in note 30 Md. L. Rev. 240 (1970). The provisions were found in sees. 45 and 46 of art. 54. "Sec. 45. Accretion to land on navigable river.-The proprietor of land bounding on any of the navigable waters of this State shall be entitled to all accretions to said land by the recession of said water, whether heretofore or hereafter formed or made by natural causes or otherwise, in like manner and to like extent as such right may or can be claimed by the proprietor of land bounding on water not navigable. "Sec. 46. Bight to make improvements in front of land on navigable river.-The pro- prietor of land bounding on any of the navigable waters of this State shall be entitled to the exclusive right or making improvements into the waters in front of his said land; such improvements and other accretions as above provided for shall pass to the successive owners of the land to which they are attached, as incident to their respective estates. But no such improvement shall be so made as to interfere with the navigation of the stream of water into which the said improvement is made." « Art. 66C, sec. 720. "262 Md. 24, 277 A. 2d 427 (1971). See also Owen v. Hubbard, 260 Md. 146, 271, A. 2d 672 (1970). 18 See G. Power, note 1, p. 5, at 148. |
