Ballard's Tide Flats Belong to the Uplanders, State Board Rules

The board of state land commissioners has rendered a decision in favor of the Washington Improvement Company in the matter of the tide lands at Ballard, claimed by Alfred Peabody and others. The question involved the determination of the fact whether the improvement was within the meaning of the law, and whether the tide land was a part of the upland in controversy bounded by Shilshole Avenue, the line of high tide, and within the lines of the streets.

The board held that a boom ground was not an improvement of the character contemplated by the law of March 28, 1890, giving a riparian owner a preference right of purchase. It quoted from an earlier case: 'It may be that its tide land ... would support an application of a mill owner for wharfage ground for a lumber yard and logging purposes, but it would certainly not sustain a lease ... the moment it was ... filled and crowded, and the yard and boom ground would be separated and the beneficial use of the area ... would be lost, and the purpose of the grant defeated.' But that language, the board said, clearly imported that the law did not include a boom ground as an improvement of that character; if at all, only as an incident to an existing improvement.

The statute provides that a dedication shall be considered, to all intents and purposes, as a quit claim deed to the donee for the purposes intended by the donor. The board reasoned that the fee in Shilshole Avenue was not absolute: under the general statutes, if the town of Ballard should abandon the street, the land would revert to the abutting owner, not be sold to another proprietor. 'Then, at this, the policy of the state in disposing of its tide lands is to assist in the upbuilding of its business, trade and commerce. Towns and cities are nowhere in the law suggested as possible owners or purchasers of tide lands. The rights of the public are preserved in the mandatory provisions of the law providing that streets and boulevards shall be laid out over ... tide and harbor areas ... Beyond this the municipal corporations have no interest whatever. It was never intended that they should become speculators in tide lands or engage in business, trade and commerce. And to say that because a town proprietor in platting his townsite happened to run the lines of some of the streets over on to the tide ... for the evident purpose of assisting trade and commerce, he therefore cut himself off from the exercise of a preference right given to upland owners, would be to limit the very spirit of the law and would lead to endless confusion.'

The board therefore found that the applicant was entitled to purchase the land in controversy as an upland owner, except such as might be comprehended within the boundaries of Shilshole Avenue if extended across the tide lands. As to that portion, the contestant had no claim or interest. The secretary of the commission was instructed to give notice that on June 10, 1895, the applicant's plats in front of the city of Ballard would be filed for record with the commissioner of public lands.