Lacano Investments, LLC v. Joe Balash

Plaintiffs-Appellants Lacano Investments, LLC, Nowell Avenue Development, and Ava L. Eads, allege that they hold land patents that were issued by the federal government many years before Alaska entered the Union. The patents give title to certain streambeds in Alaska. In 2010 and 2011, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources determined that the waterways above these streambeds were navigable in 1959, the year Alaska was admitted to the Union, and remain navigable. Under the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, all land beneath such waterways belongs to the State of Alaska. See 43 U.S.C. § 1311 (a) (“[i]t is determined and declared to be in the public interest that (1) title to and ownership of the lands beneath navigable waters within the boundaries of the respective States ... are, subject to the provisions hereof, recognized, confirmed, established, and vested in and assigned to the respective States”); Act to Provide for the Admission of the State of Alaska into the Union, Pub.L. No. 85-508, 72 Stat. 339, 343 § 6(m) (1958) (“[t]he Submerged Lands Act of 1953 shall be applicable to the State of Alaska and the said State shall have the same rights as do existing States…