The most common mistake in a Minnesota lakeshore dispute is the assumption that the person who owns the bottom controls the water above it. A client shows a survey proving that 95 percent of a small lake sits over his neighbor’s half section and concludes the neighbor can fence him off. In 1960 the Minnesota Supreme Court held the opposite, overruled the case that had said otherwise, and did it on facts almost exactly that stark.
The rule that replaced it is broader than most people realize. Riparian rights in Minnesota attach chiefly to ownership of the shore; Minnesota courts have also recognized lakebed ownership as a source of riparian status, but bed ownership by itself confers no exclusive control over the water above it. They do not depend on whether the lake is navigable. And every abutting owner — whoever holds title to the bed — is entitled to use the entire surface, subject only to reasonableness and to not unduly interfering with the identical rights of everyone else on the water.
That single reallocation drives most of what follows: who may put in a dock, what a platted road running down to the water does to the neighbors, why a channel dug from a back-lot pond to the lake gets denied, and why the boundary of your lakeshore is not one line but three.
Who owns the water in a Minnesota lake?
Nobody, in the ordinary sense. The Minnesota Supreme Court said so directly in Pratt v. State, Department of Natural Resources, 309 N.W.2d 767 (Minn. 1981), a wild-rice case in which the landowner held essentially the entire shoreline and the beds of three lakes:
Nor, properly speaking, does Mr. Pratt “own” these lakes. One does not, at common law, have title to water in its natural state, at least not until it has been artificially confined. Water in its natural state is not property capable of being owned. . . . Rather, one may have rights to the use and enjoyment of the water, rights exclusive of the general public, through ownership of lakeshore or lakebed. These rights the law calls riparian. One does not own the water; one owns riparian rights to the use and enjoyment of the water.
Id. at 772 (citations omitted).
The same opinion disposes of the companion assumption — that when the state declares a water “public,” it has taken something:
Ownership, in a proprietary sense, does not thereby pass to the state; rather, waters, once declared public, simply become subject to the protection and control of the state under its regulatory scheme. The state exercises this control by virtue of its police power. The state is said to hold title only in a sovereign capacity, as trustee for the public good, and not in a proprietary sense.
Id. at 771. Reclassification is regulation, not condemnation. What the riparian owner keeps is a bundle of use rights, and those rights are, in the words of the Court of Appeals quoting State v. Kuluvar, “subordinate to the rights of the public and subject to reasonable control and regulation by the state.” Bloomquist v. Commissioner of Natural Resources, 704 N.W.2d 184, 188 (Minn. Ct. App. 2005) (quoting State v. Kuluvar, 266 Minn. 408, 418, 123 N.W.2d 699, 706 (1963)).
One caution on the older authority: Pratt, like the other water-regulation cases of its era, cites Minn. Stat. ch. 105. The water statutes were recodified into chapter 103G in 1990. The propositions survive; the section numbers in those opinions do not.
Can my neighbor fence off the part of the lake over his own lakebed?
No. That is the precise holding of Johnson v. Seifert, 257 Minn. 159, 100 N.W.2d 689 (1960).
Two unmeandered 35-acre lakes, no inlet or outlet, no public access. The section line ran near the northern shore, so roughly five percent of each lake’s water area lay on the plaintiff’s side. The defendants owned the rest, built a fence through both lakes along the section line, and the trial court blessed it — finding the lakes nonnavigable, the beds privately owned, and the overlying waters “the private property of the owner of the bed and subject to his complete and exclusive control.” 257 Minn. at 162.
The supreme court reversed, overruled Lamprey v. Danz outright, and held:
an abutting or riparian owner of a lake, suitable for fishing, boating, hunting, swimming, and other uses, domestic or recreational, to which our lakes are ordinarily put in common with other abutting owners, has a right to make such use of the lake over its entire surface, in common with all other abutting owners, provided such use is reasonable and does not unduly interfere with the exercise of similar rights on the part of other abutting owners, regardless of the navigable or public character of the lake and regardless of the ownership of the bed thereof.
Id. at 168–69, 100 N.W.2d at 696–97.
The court’s diagnosis of the older cases is the part worth internalizing. It said the “basic error” of Lamprey v. Danz “is that no riparian rights were involved” — the earlier court had treated bed ownership as conferring “absolute supremacy and control of the waters as if they were solid land.” Id. at 164–65. Navigability, the court explained, is a test designed for the narrow purpose of deciding who owns lakebeds and identifying waters where the federal government is the paramount navigation authority. It has no material bearing on riparian rights, which arise from shore ownership rather than bed ownership. Id. at 165.
Two limits travel with the rule.
It does not reach every wet spot. The court was explicit that the rule does not apply “to every pothole or swamp frequented by wild fowl and over which a small boat might be poled to retrieve game, but which as a practical matter does not lend itself in any substantial degree to the customary propulsion of boats by outboard motors or oars.” A minor body of water “which by its nature and character reasonably has no overall utility common to two or more abutting owners would fall outside the rule,” and “[n]o hard-and-fast line can be drawn and each case must be determined according to its own peculiar facts.” Id. at 169.
Water level is a duty, not just a right. Johnson also held that “[o]ne of the incidents of riparian ownership is the obligation to do nothing which affects the water level of the lake so as to do substantial harm to another riparian owner,” while allowing each owner to use water for beneficial purposes such as irrigation so long as the use is reasonable as to the others. Id. at 169. On the facts, the defendants’ irrigation draw was reasonable and was upheld even though the fence was not.
Where does my lakeshore lot actually end?
There is no single answer, because Minnesota uses at least three different lines for three different purposes. Conflating them is the source of a great deal of bad advice.
1. The title line. For navigable or public waters, the shore owner’s title runs to the low-water mark, and the strip between high and low water is owned subject to a public servitude. State v. Korrer, 127 Minn. 60, 148 N.W. 617 (1914), stated it in terms that have not been improved on:
While the title of a riparian owner in navigable or public waters extends to ordinary low-water mark, his title is not absolute except to ordinary high-water mark. As to the intervening space his title is limited or qualified by the right of the public to use the same for purpose of navigation or other public purpose.
Id. at 76. The state may reclaim that strip during low water and protect it from any use — “even by the riparian owner” — that would interfere with present or prospective public use, without compensation. Id. Below low-water mark, the bed of a public lake belongs to the state, and in Korrer itself that meant the shore owners could not mine iron ore out of it. Id. at 76–77.
2. The regulatory line. Chapter 103G does not use “low-water mark.” It uses the ordinary high-water level, defined as “the boundary of water basins, watercourses, public waters, and public waters wetlands,” where
(1) the ordinary high-water level is an elevation delineating the highest water level that has been maintained for a sufficient period of time to leave evidence upon the landscape, commonly the point where the natural vegetation changes from predominantly aquatic to predominantly terrestrial;
(2) for watercourses, the ordinary high-water level is the elevation of the top of the bank of the channel; and
(3) for reservoirs and flowages, the ordinary high-water level is the operating elevation of the normal summer pool.
Minn. Stat. § 103G.005, subd. 14 (2025). This is a jurisdictional and permitting boundary, not a deed line. A reader who takes Korrer’s “ordinary high-water mark” and the statute’s “ordinary high-water level” to be the same concept doing the same work will get the analysis wrong.
3. The zoning line. “Shoreland” is defined by distance from the water, and it is a large footprint: “land within 1,000 feet from the normal high watermark of a lake, pond, or flowage” and “land within 300 feet of a river or stream or the landward side of a floodplain delineated by ordinance on the river or stream, whichever is greater.” Minn. Stat. § 103F.205, subd. 4 (2025). Within that band, a local shoreland ordinance — reviewed by the DNR for substantial compliance with state model standards, and adoptable by the commissioner if the municipality will not act — governs lot area, water frontage, structure placement, sanitary facilities, and permitted uses. Minn. Stat. §§ 103F.211, subd. 1; 103F.221, subds. 1–2 (2025).
So a lakeshore parcel can sit entirely inside the shoreland district for zoning, have a deed line at low water, and be measured for DNR permitting from an ordinary high-water level that matches neither.
Is a lake “public water”? Not the same question as whether it is navigable.
Minnesota’s regulatory definition is a list, and it is deliberately decoupled from common-law navigability. “Public waters” means, among other things, basins assigned a shoreland management classification; waters finally determined to be public or navigable by a court; meandered lakes not legally drained; basins where the state or federal government holds title to any of the beds or shores; basins with a publicly owned and controlled access intended to provide public access; natural and altered watercourses with a total drainage area greater than two square miles; designated trout streams; and public waters wetlands. Minn. Stat. § 103G.005, subd. 15(a) (2025).
Then paragraph (b) tells you what does not settle the question:
(b) Public waters are not determined exclusively by:
(1) the proprietorship of the underlying, overlying, or surrounding land;
(2) whether it is a body or stream of water that was navigable in fact or susceptible of being used as a highway for commerce at the time this state was admitted to the union; or
(3) their inclusion in or exclusion from the public waters inventory required under section 103G.201. This clause is effective July 1, 2027.
Minn. Stat. § 103G.005, subd. 15(b) (2025). Note the third clause carries its own future effective date; as of this writing it is not yet operative. That is worth flagging in any opinion letter, because the DNR’s county public waters inventory maps are the practical first stop, and the legislature has scheduled a change in how conclusive their contents are. Meanwhile the commissioner maintains and periodically revises those maps, including to “correct errors in the original inventory” and to add or subtract public waters created or eliminated as a permit requirement. Minn. Stat. § 103G.201(a), (e) (2025).
Private ownership of the bed does not answer it either. As Pratt noted in explaining that the plaintiff owned virtually the entire shoreline and therefore the lakebeds too, private ownership of a lakebed “does not, by itself, necessarily determine the character of the water as public or private.” 309 N.W.2d at 772 n.6. The same footnote states the default rule for how private lakebeds are divided: “riparian owners of land on non-navigable lakes own the lakebed in severalty, the boundary lines being fixed by extending lines from each tract to the lake center.” Id.
Do I need a permit for a dock?
Usually not from the DNR — and that is the answer that misleads people, because the conditions attached to “no permit required” include compliance with local rules that very much do apply.
Minn. R. 6115.0210, subp. 4.A provides that no permit is required to construct, reconstruct, or install a dock, floating or temporary structure, watercraft lift, or mooring facility if all of the following hold:
- the structure or mooring facility “will not constitute a hazard to navigation or public health, safety, and welfare, as determined by the commissioner”;
- “the structure will allow the free flow of water beneath it”;
- it “is not used or intended to be used as a marina”;
- it “is consistent with or allowed under local land use controls, as determined by the local government land use authority”;
- “the length of the structure is limited to that necessary to accomplish its intended use, including reaching navigable water depths”;
- the structure, other than a watercraft lift or watercraft canopy, “is not more than eight feet in width and is not combined with other similar structures so as to create a larger structure”; and
- “docks placed on rock filled cribs are located only on waters where the bed is predominantly bedrock, which is incapable of accepting pilings.”
Condition 4 is the one that decides most real disputes. The exemption from state permitting is conditioned on satisfying the county or municipal shoreland ordinance, so the operative regulator for a residential dock is ordinarily local government, not the DNR.
Separately, subpart 3 prohibits placement outright — permit or no permit — where the structure will obstruct navigation or create a water safety hazard; will be detrimental to significant fish and wildlife habitat (with construction prohibited in posted fish spawning areas); “is designed or intended to be used for human habitation or as a boat storage structure”; “is designed or intended to include walls, a roof, or sewage facilities”; or will take listed threatened or endangered species without authorization. Minn. R. 6115.0210, subp. 3.
The third and fourth items are why the lakeside boathouse is a legal problem rather than an architectural one. Boathouses and boat storage structures “are prohibited on public waters of Minnesota” except under narrow allowances, and the commissioner may permit a boathouse only in areas of historic use where the boathouse existed on public waters before January 1, 1997, or where it serves as a public service structure within a permitted commercial marina. Minn. Stat. § 103G.245, subd. 4(b)–(c) (2025). A pre-1997 boathouse may be repaired or replaced consistent with the permit. Id., subd. 4(d).
Anything beyond a dock heads into permit territory. Wharves require a permit for construction or reconstruction, with a stated order of preference favoring bulkheaded shoreline and inland slips over structures projecting into public waters. Minn. R. 6115.0211, subp. 3. Offshore breakwaters require a permit and are approved only where “alternative dock or inland facilities are infeasible.” Id., subp. 4.A. Offshore mooring facilities are permitted subject to criteria including that the facility “minimizes encroachment waterward of the ordinary high water level” and that anything wider than eight feet be justified as the minimal-impact solution. Id., subp. 4a.B–C.
Can I dig a channel to give my back lot lake access?
No. This is one of the few places where Minnesota law states a flat prohibition rather than a balancing test. Excavation is prohibited “where inland excavation is intended to extend riparian rights to nonriparian lands, or to promote the subdivision and development of nonriparian lands.” Minn. R. 6115.0200, subp. 3.B. Excavation is also prohibited “where it is intended to gain access to navigable water depths when such access can be reasonably attained by alternative means which would result in less environmental impact.” Id., subp. 3.A.
Bloomquist v. Commissioner of Natural Resources, 704 N.W.2d 184 (Minn. Ct. App. 2005), is the illustration. A thirty-acre Whitefish Lake parcel contained a pond about twenty feet from the lake, connected by an artificial channel permitted in 1961 and maintained under later permits until it silted in around 1991. A developer took a purchase agreement contingent on reopening the channel and subdividing. The commissioner denied the permit — rejecting a favorable ALJ recommendation — on the prohibition against extending riparian rights to nonriparian land, nonconformity with water and land resource management plans and shoreland ordinances, and the existence of alternative access with less environmental impact. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Id. at 186–87.
The opinion also disposes of the “we have used it for decades” argument. Prescriptive riparian rights are theoretically available on the ordinary fifteen-year prescription standard, Minn. Stat. § 541.02; Bloomquist, 704 N.W.2d at 188 (citing Heuer v. County of Aitkin, 645 N.W.2d 753, 759 (Minn. App. 2002)), but the use must be hostile — and use under a DNR permit is not. The 1961 permit said it was “permissive” and conferred no “property rights either in real estate or material, or any exclusive privileges.” That language defeated the claim: the use “was never hostile or adverse and he acquired no prescriptive rights, riparian or otherwise, in the channel.” Id. at 188.
The same instinct shows up in the harbor rules, which size an excavated facility to the shoreline actually served: for harbors, boat slips, and other mooring facilities, “the excavation is appropriately sized to provide a single mooring space for each riparian lot to be served,” with the number generally determined by dividing the natural shoreline served by the lot requirements of the local land use authority and the state shoreland standards. Minn. R. 6115.0200, subp. 5.K.
There is a platted road between my lot and the water. Who has the riparian rights?
Both of you, in almost every configuration Minnesota courts have considered. This is the single most consequential title question on older lakeshore, and the answer depends on whether the public way runs to the water or along it.
A road that runs to the water. A dedicated way that terminates at the lake carries riparian rights for the public. Flynn v. Beisel, 257 Minn. 531, 102 N.W.2d 284 (1960), involved a passageway on Lake Koronis fenced out to the water’s edge and used for decades for ice harvesting, fishing, boat landing, and dock use. The court held: “It is well established in this state, both in principle and authority, that others than fee owners may possess riparian rights.” Id. at 536–37. It quoted Village of Wayzata v. Great Northern Railway: “Where the grant or dedication to the public is for the purpose of passage, and goes to the water, the conclusion — there being no indication of a contrary intention — is inevitable that the grant or dedication was intended to enable the public to get to the water for the better enjoyment of the public right of navigation.” Id. at 537.
But those rights are shared, not exclusive. Applying Johnson v. Seifert, Flynn held that “any privileges enjoyed incident to riparian rights are almost universally held to be in common with other abutting owners and that includes the public where the public is involved through a town or village as a riparian owner representing the public,” and that “joint ownership” is the wrong description of the relationship. Id. at 539.
A road that runs along the shore. Here the fee owner keeps riparian rights too. In McLafferty v. St. Aubin, 500 N.W.2d 165 (Minn. Ct. App. 1993), a century-old dedicated avenue ran along the shore of Lake Wabasso in Shoreview. The city had never improved it; the abutting owners had kept docks since the 1940s. When the city denied a vacation petition and ordered the docks removed, the trial court found the city’s riparian rights paramount. The Court of Appeals reversed on both points: under the Brisbine line of cases the city “does not have exclusive riparian rights here and cannot order the fee owners to remove their docks on the basis of exclusivity,” id. at 168, and because the city was not actually exercising riparian rights — no plan for a beach, public dock, or other public access use — the owners’ improvements did not unreasonably interfere, id. at 168.
The court left the door open: “If, in the future, the city decides to exercise its riparian rights purposefully, the property owners may be required to yield.” Id. Shared riparian rights on a shoreline street easement are a standoff that can be broken by the public body actually building something.
The practical consequence for a buyer is that a strip of platted right-of-way between the lot line and the water does not necessarily destroy riparian rights — but it does mean they are held in common with the public, and the marketing description “private lakeshore” is then wrong. This is closely related to the general law of access rights, which we cover in easements and access disputes.
What else comes with riparian ownership?
Beyond surface use, the traditional bundle in Minnesota includes access, wharfage, and the shifting-boundary doctrines. Korrer collected them:
The riparian owner has the right to the use of the water and has the right of access to it for that purpose. To that end he may follow it as it recedes. He has the title to the reliction caused by the gradual recession of the water and to the accretion caused by the washing of sand, dirt and gravel ashore.
127 Minn. at 71. The same passage confirms that riparian rights “include the right of the riparian owner to build and maintain, for his own and the public use, suitable wharves, piers and landings,” extending to the point of navigability subject to public rights and legislative regulation, id. at 71–72 — the point the Court of Appeals later restated as the right “to build and maintain, for private or public use, wharves, piers, and landings on the riparian land and extending into the water.” McLafferty, 500 N.W.2d at 168 (citing Korrer, 127 Minn. at 71–72, 148 N.W. at 622).
Korrer also establishes that these are compensable property interests, not licenses: the rights of a riparian owner “are valuable property rights of which he cannot be divested without consent, except by due process of law, and, if for public purposes, upon just compensation.” 127 Minn. at 72.
The list of recognized uses is broad. The Court of Appeals has described riparian rights as including “hunting, fishing, boating, sailing, irrigating, and growing and harvesting wild rice.” In re Central Baptist Theological Seminary, 370 N.W.2d 642, 646 (Minn. Ct. App. 1985), review denied (Minn. Sept. 19, 1985). It has also drawn the outer bound: “Building a radio tower in water is not a riparian right.” Id.
Three more practical items:
Weed control needs a permit. Harvesting or destroying aquatic plants in public waters requires a DNR permit, and the commissioner may issue permits to gather or harvest aquatic plants other than wild rice, to transplant aquatic plants, or “to destroy harmful or undesirable aquatic vegetation or organisms in public waters under prescribed conditions.” Minn. Stat. § 103G.615, subd. 1(a) (2025). An aquatic plant management permit “is valid for one growing season and expires on December 31 of the year it is issued” unless the commissioner sets a different date. Id., subd. 1(c). A fee may be charged per contiguous parcel of shoreline for rooted-vegetation control, but not for purple loosestrife or lakewide Eurasian watermilfoil programs. Id., subd. 2(b).
Moving material in or on the bed needs a permit. A public-waters-work permit is required to “change or diminish the course, current, or cross section of public waters, entirely or partially within the state, by any means, including filling, excavating, or placing of materials in or on the beds of public waters,” and to build, remove, or alter a reservoir, dam, or waterway obstruction on public waters. Minn. Stat. § 103G.245, subd. 1 (2025). The exceptions are narrow — work in altered natural watercourses that are part of chapter 103D or 103E drainage systems, certain chapter 103E drainage projects, and like-for-like culvert restoration or replacement that does not impact a designated trout stream. Id., subd. 2.
Excluding people from your land is not a riparian right. Pratt drew the distinction cleanly: an owner’s right to keep others off his property “is not a riparian right. It is simply the right any landowner has to prevent trespass over his property.” 309 N.W.2d at 772 n.6. A shore owner can stop the public from walking across the yard to reach the lake. That does nothing about a boat that arrives from a public access.
What should a lakeshore buyer verify before closing?
The recurring surprises are title problems, not water-law problems. In rough order of how often they wreck a transaction:
- Is the parcel actually riparian? Confirm the described boundary runs to the water. A surveyed strip, an old railroad grade, a platted street, or a separately owned outlot between the lot and the lake changes the analysis entirely — and if the strip is public right-of-way, Flynn and McLafferty mean the rights are shared, not gone.
- Is the water a “public water” under § 103G.005, subd. 15? Pull the county public waters inventory map maintained under § 103G.201, and remember that the map is not exclusively determinative — and that the clause addressing the inventory’s effect does not take effect until July 1, 2027.
- What does the local shoreland ordinance require? The parcel is almost certainly within the shoreland district (1,000 feet from a lake; 300 feet from a river or stream, or the delineated floodplain, whichever is greater). Setbacks, impervious coverage, and lot-width rules there are stricter than general zoning.
- Is every existing structure lawful? A dock is exempt from a DNR permit only if it satisfies all seven conditions in Minn. R. 6115.0210, subp. 4.A, including local land use compliance and the eight-foot width limit. A boathouse is prohibited unless it predates January 1, 1997 in an area of historic use or serves a permitted commercial marina.
- Are there permits in the file, and what do they say? Bloomquist turned on permit language stating the use was “permissive” and conferred no property rights. Read the old permits before assuming decades of use created anything.
- Are there shared-access rights running to back lots? A recorded easement or a covenant granting lake access to non-lakeshore lots multiplies the number of people entitled to use your frontage. Those instruments have their own expiration and enforcement rules — see restrictive covenants under Minn. Stat. § 500.20.
- Is the land registered? On Torrens property the certificate and its memorials, not the recorder’s tract index, define what burdens the title. See what a Minnesota certificate of title does and does not cut off.
- Where is the boundary, really? Shifting shorelines, old fences, and long-standing occupation lines generate adverse possession and boundary claims on lakeshore more often than on interior land. If title is genuinely clouded, the remedy is a quiet title action under Minn. Stat. § 559.01.
- How does water move across the property? Runoff, culverts, and altered drainage between neighbors are governed by a different body of law than riparian rights — see surface water drainage disputes.
One note on federal law: if the water is navigable for federal purposes, a separate admiralty and Corps of Engineers overlay can apply to structures and to certain claims arising on the water. That is a federal question distinct from everything above, and it should be evaluated separately rather than assumed either way.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC handles Minnesota lakeshore and water-boundary disputes — riparian rights between neighbors, dock and access conflicts, shared-access easements and outlots, ordinary high-water level and boundary questions, DNR permit denials, and quiet title actions to clean up shoreline title before or after a sale. If a neighbor is blocking your access to the water, if a city or township is asserting rights in a shoreline right-of-way, or if you are buying lakeshore and want to know what you are actually getting, call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 103G.005 (2025) — subd. 11 (meandered lake), subd. 14 (ordinary high-water level; the vegetation-change test, top of bank for watercourses, normal summer pool for reservoirs and flowages), subd. 15(a) (the eleven categories of public waters), subd. 15(b) (public waters not determined exclusively by proprietorship, statehood-era navigability in fact, or inventory inclusion — clause (3) effective July 1, 2027). Minn. Stat. § 103G.201 (2025) — paras. (a) and (e) (public waters inventory maps; commissioner’s revision authority). Minn. Stat. § 103G.245 (2025) — subd. 1 (public-waters-work permit required to change course, current, or cross section, including filling, excavating, or placing materials in or on the beds of public waters), subd. 2 (three exceptions), subd. 4(b)–(d) (boathouses and boat storage structures prohibited; pre-January 1, 1997 historic-use and commercial-marina allowances; repair or replacement). Minn. Stat. § 103G.615 (2025) — subd. 1(a) (aquatic plant permits), subd. 1(c) (one growing season; expires December 31), subd. 2(b) (per-parcel fee; loosestrife and lakewide milfoil exceptions). Minn. Stat. § 103F.201 (2025) (regulatory purpose of shoreland development). Minn. Stat. § 103F.205, subd. 4 (2025) (shoreland = 1,000 feet from a lake, pond, or flowage; 300 feet from a river or stream or the landward side of a delineated floodplain, whichever is greater). Minn. Stat. § 103F.211, subd. 1 (2025) (model standards and criteria the commissioner must adopt). Minn. Stat. § 103F.221, subds. 1–2 (2025) (DNR review of municipal shoreland ordinances for substantial compliance; commissioner adoption on municipal failure). Minn. Stat. § 541.02 (2025) (fifteen-year period for recovery of real estate, applied to prescriptive riparian rights in Bloomquist). Minn. R. 6115.0200 (2026) — subp. 3.A (excavation prohibited where access to navigable depths is reasonably attainable by less damaging means), subp. 3.B (excavation prohibited where intended to extend riparian rights to nonriparian lands or promote subdivision and development of nonriparian lands), subp. 5.K (harbor sizing; one mooring space per riparian lot served). Minn. R. 6115.0210 (2026) — subp. 3 (prohibited placement of structures), subp. 4.A(1)–(7) (the seven conditions for dock, lift, and mooring installation without a permit, including local land use compliance and the eight-foot width limit). Minn. R. 6115.0211 (2026) — subp. 3 (wharves; order of preference), subp. 4.A (breakwaters; infeasibility of alternatives), subp. 4a.B–C (mooring facilities; minimizing encroachment waterward of the ordinary high water level; justification above eight feet). Johnson v. Seifert, 257 Minn. 159, 100 N.W.2d 689 (1960) — 257 Minn. at 162 (trial court’s exclusive-control decree), 164–65 (basic error of Lamprey v. Danz; navigability’s narrow purpose), 168–69, 100 N.W.2d at 696–97 (holding: entire surface in common, reasonable use, regardless of navigability and bed ownership; Lamprey v. Danz overruled), 169 (pothole/swamp limitation; water-level obligation; reasonable irrigation use). State v. Korrer, 127 Minn. 60, 148 N.W. 617 (1914) — 127 Minn. at 71 (right of access; following the water as it recedes; title to reliction and accretion), 71–72 (wharves, piers, and landings; state regulation), 72 (riparian rights are valuable property rights requiring due process and just compensation), 76 (title to ordinary low-water mark; not absolute except to ordinary high-water mark; public servitude in the intervening space), 76–77 (no right to take ore below low-water mark). Pratt v. State, Dep’t of Natural Resources, 309 N.W.2d 767 (Minn. 1981) — at 771 (declaring waters public is regulation under the police power, not a proprietary transfer; state holds title in a sovereign capacity as trustee), 772 (water in its natural state is not property capable of being owned; one owns riparian rights, not water), 772 n.6 (private lakebed ownership does not determine public/private character; non-navigable lakebeds owned in severalty by lines extended to the lake center; right to exclude trespassers is not a riparian right). Flynn v. Beisel, 257 Minn. 531, 102 N.W.2d 284 (1960) — 257 Minn. at 536–37 (others than fee owners may possess riparian rights), 537 (quoting Village of Wayzata v. Great Northern Railway on dedications that go to the water), 539 (privileges incident to riparian rights held in common; “joint ownership” inapt). McLafferty v. St. Aubin, 500 N.W.2d 165 (Minn. Ct. App. 1993) — at 168 (city holding a shoreline street easement does not have exclusive riparian rights; Brisbine line; no unreasonable interference where the city is not purposefully exercising its rights; owners may be required to yield later; riparian rights include wharves, piers, and landings, citing Korrer). Bloomquist v. Commissioner of Natural Resources, 704 N.W.2d 184 (Minn. Ct. App. 2005) — at 186–87 (facts and the three grounds for permit denial), 187 (riparian rights are rights to reasonably use the surface of abutting waters), 188 (quoting State v. Kuluvar, 266 Minn. 408, 418, 123 N.W.2d 699, 706 (1963), that riparian rights are subordinate to public rights and subject to reasonable state regulation; permissive DNR permit language defeats prescriptive riparian rights). In re Central Baptist Theological Seminary, 370 N.W.2d 642 (Minn. Ct. App. 1985), review denied (Minn. Sept. 19, 1985) — at 646 (enumerated riparian uses; a radio tower in water is not a riparian right). Water-regulation cases decided before 1990 cite Minn. Stat. ch. 105, which was recodified as ch. 103G in 1990. This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no outcome is promised or implied.