Montana Loses Bid for Riverbed Titles in Dispute Over Dam Leases

Montana failed to convince a federal appeals court that more disputed segments of the Missouri River are state property after an opinion Tuesday upheld a lower court’s navigability analysis.

The US District Court for the District of Montana properly applied the “navigable in fact” framework set out by the state’s Supreme Court in ruling that only riverbeds between the Sun River and Black Eagle Falls Segment of the waterway were used for boat travel or commerce at the time of admission, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said.

Montana argued that courts should divide river sections by ...