navigable waters

navigable waters
Rivers or other bodies of water used, or susceptible of being used in their ordinary condition, as highways for commerce, over which trade and travel are or may be conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on water. Elder v Delcour, 364 Mo 835, 269 SW2d 17, 47 ALR2d 370. A stream or body of water having the capacity and suitability for the usual purpose of navigation, ascending or descending, by vessels such as are employed in the ordinary purposes of commerce, whether foreign or inland, and whether steam, sail, or other motive power. 56 Am J1st Wat § 179. The test of navigability is whether the river, in its natural state, is used, or capable of being used, as a highway for commerce, over which trade and travel are or may be conducted in the customary modes of trade and travel on water. In the sense of the law, navigability is not destroyed because the watercourse is interrupted by occasional natural obstruction or portages; nor need the navigation be open at all seasons of the year, or at all stages of the water. Economy Light & Power Co. v United States, 256 US 113, 121, 65 L Ed 847, 854, 41 S Ct 409. Navigability is a term of art, and often may be at variance with the usual and common conception of the meaning of the word. Under English common-law rules, waters were navigable which were salty or subject to the influence and flow of ocean tides, and all other waters were nonnavigable, irrespective of whether or not vessels of commerce or pleasure operated on them in fact. Anno: 47 ALR2d 385.

Ballentine's law dictionary. . 1998.

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