In waterways that are accessible to commercial boat traffic, ownership stops at the water's edge. Which type of waterways is this?

• A. Fixture
• B. Navigable waterways
• C. Non navigable waterways
• D. Riparian rights

Answer: (B)

The main idea is that navigability determines who owns what along a waterway. When a waterway is open to commercial boat traffic, it’s considered navigable. For navigable waterways, the state owns the bed and banks up to the water’s edge, while private landowners own the land up to that edge; the water itself and the underlying beds beyond the edge are public. That’s why ownership stops at the water’s edge in this case.

If a waterway isn’t navigable, the boundary often goes farther inland (in many places to the middle of the channel), which is why the edge-rule doesn’t apply there. Riparian rights describe what a landowner can do with adjacent water, not where ownership ends. A fixture is an item attached to the property and does not define water boundary.