Surface Water, Blessing or Curse?
By Jim Palmer Jr.

Almost every week in my real estate business I receive calls from potential buyers who recite a wish list for their future raw land purchase. Virtually every dreamy eyed customer’s wish list includes that it must have a stream or pond on the property or must have lake or a river frontage. I then think to myself, what is the attraction of people to water? From the time we are little children we are attracted to even the tiniest of mud puddles! Don’t these dreamers know that wetlands restrictions will rob them of much of their property and that they will be subject to a host of regulations that may hamper building plans or septic installations? Don’t they know that they’ll have to wear a mosquito net for part of the year? Don’t they know they may have to pay hundreds of dollars each month just for flood insurance? Don’t they realize that when they own waterfront property on a navigable lake or river that it’s like owning property on a public highway?

Maybe they really do know about these negative issues, but they just don’t care! The pleasure of owning property with surface water obviously offsets the negative aspects in most cases. I guess that’s why I own a dock on a lake and a couple of parcels with ponds and streams!

One problem with owning some so-called-river-front properties concerns the fact that those owners may not actually have legit waterfront. A recent ad read something like this; “1310 line waterfront on Lake Roosevelt! Level lot, with gorgeous views of the lake.”

Naïve buyers may not understand that properties like the one listed above, may only have water frontage when/if the water reaches the 1310 elevation mark. Below that line is federal public land so they may actually never have waterfront property and cannot install docks or piers on publicly controlled land. If that property happens to be inside reservation boundaries they may not even be able to fish from the shore without first obtaining a permit from the tribe.

 I once brokered a surveyed property along the Spokane River that was underwater for part of the year but when they drew down the reservoir to make way for spring runoff, the dock was high and dry for a season. When purchasing waterfront property, make sure the blessing outweighs the curse!