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Show Great Salt Lade Ownership To Be Decided By Supreme Court The question of whether the State of Utah or the Federal Government owns certain lands surrounding the Great Salt Lake will soon be decided by the U. S. Supreme Court. DIVISION OF Wildlife Resources Assistant Director Donald A. Smith and Ogden Bay Waterfowl Management Area Superintendent Noland Nelson recently returned from testifying at a hearing in Washington, D. C, dealing with that question. Testimony was before the Honorable Charles E. Fahey, special master appointed by the Supreme Court to hear testimony on the case. Smith pointed out the Court actually is now in its third phase of determining ownership. The first two questions considered by the court were (1) navigability of the lake, which affects ownership under terms of the statehood charter, and (2) application of the law of reliction to the Great Salt Lake, which provides that landowners adjacent to fluctuating bodies of water have property rights to lands uncovered as waters recede. BOTH OF these concerns were resolved in the interest of the State of Utah, rather than the Federal Government, through earlier hearings and decisions by the Court. The present phase is one of lake bed boundaries. The state charter stipulates that the beds of navigable lakes and streams became the property of Utah with the granting grant-ing of statehood. The Court is now determining where the boundaries of the lake were at the time of statehood. "THE difference of the few feet in elevation between, what the two units of government claim involves a substantial sub-stantial amount of land," says Smith. "In fact, it includes virtually all of several of the Division's developed waterfowl water-fowl management areas on the east shore of the lake-including lake-including Farmington Bay, Ogden Bay, Harold Crane, Howard Slough and Locomotive Springs." The Great Salt Lake bottom is on a flat contour, so one or two feet's difference in elevation may cover a distance of one or two miles over the marshlands on the east shore. THE DIVISION has respected the 4,205-foot surveyed meander of the lake, and developed the waterfowl marshes on the basis the area was state land. Smith's testimony at the hearing involved explaining ways the Federal Government had recognized state control over some of the lands in question by authorizing the use of federal funds thereon. Nelson testified that silt deposition in those areas where the Weber, Bear and Jordan rivers and several creeks enter the lake has raised the lake bed through siltation, making it impossible to determine the exact location of .the original shore line. THE HEARING is now completed, and the two governmental govern-mental units are filing briefs with Mr. Fahey for his review. He will give a recommendation to the Supreme Court, which will make the decision on the final question of lake and lake bed ownership. |