Request By:
Honorable Kendall Robinson
Owsley County Attorney
Booneville, Kentucky 41314
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; Carl T. Miller, Jr., Assistant Attorney General
One of the questions which you presented in your letter of September 6, 1977 pertains to the acquisition of creek gravel by the county to use on its county roads. (The other question is being answered in another letter). You ask if the county has the legal right to go into a creek or river with a backhoe and remove gravel.
KRS 179.190 deals with how the County Engineer may acquire gravel by purchase or by condemnation.
In taking gravel from a creek or river the general laws of property prevail. Unless the gravel is taken within the road right of way or other property belonging to the county, the county should compensate the owner of the property for the materials taken. The county should also first get the owner's permission or a right of entry through condemnation before taking the gravel. If one owner owns on each side of the creek or river he should be compensated for the materials taken. If the boundary line between two owners is the center of the creek or river, the owner should be compensated who owns the side of the stream from which the materials are taken. The property owner of a stream or a portion of a stream has the same property rights as any other property owner subject only to the riparian rights pertaining to the use of the waters of the stream.