Who owns riparian land created by deposit of dredge spoils? Reads Landing Campers Association, Inc. v. Township of Pepin, 546 N.W.2d 10 (Minn. 1996) Over a period of twenty years, the U.S. Corps of Engineers conducted dredging operations on the Mississippi River near Pepin in order to improve navigation. The spoils of these dredges, over 1 million cubic yards, were deposited in front of private property owned by the Soo Line Railroad. The beach area thus created was rented by Soo Line to a series of tenants, the last of which sought a declaratory judgment as to the ownership of the dredge-created beach. The Railroad and its lessee, Reads Landing Campers, argued that the land was created through "accretion," a process of small and imperceptible change which in Minnesota results in the property belonging to the riparian owner. Lamprey v. Metcalf, 53 N.W. 1139, 1143 (1893); see also Philadelphia Co. v. Stimson, 223 U.S. 605, 624 (1912). The court refused to characterize the dredge spoils as accretion because normally these changes are so slow as to be imperceptible while they are taking place. Clearly, the court said, these dredging operations were perceptible. The Township of Pepin and the State of Minnesota argued that the beach's creation was more properly characterized as "avulsion," a sudden and abrupt loss or addition to the land, which does not change the underlying ownership interest. State v. Longyear Holding Company, 29 N.W.2d 657 (1947). Under this theory, the state would retain ownership, as the state had controlled the land when it was part of the streambed. The court likewise rejected avulsion, pointing out that the beach was created over a period of twenty years. The court instead characterized the land as "gradually and periodically" created, and awarded the rights to such newly created land to the riparian landowner. The court relied on Minnesota's traditional support of a riparian owner's access to the water as the foundation of its decision for this new "class" of created land. The court further justified its holding by expressing its reluctance to deprive a landowner of access to the water due to the unsolicited actions of a third party which the landowner is powerless to stop, especially when such access is the principle source of the property's value.
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