A federal judge has ruled that a private landowner along Utah Lake does not own the property to the edge of the lake. Assistant Utah Attorney General Mike Johnson hailed the ruling about the Powell Slough area for helping to maintain public access to Utah Lake in Utah County. "A lot of people use it for hunting and fishing," Johnson said. U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball sided with the state in ruling that the federal government owned the land between the private parcel and the water's edge. The ruling is part of a lawsuit filed in 1997 to settle who owns the lake shore between the historic high water level to its present one, which is about 8 feet lower. The drop in the lake level exposed thousands of acres of land. Conservation and hunting groups feared that private ownership would mean closed access to the lake and possible development along the shore. The state had previously agreed that 20,000 acres around the lake were privately owned, but then reversed itself and asked the court to nullify the accord, with attorneys saying the state had made a mistake in not protecting the public interest. In the Powell Slough area, Kimball ruled last week that the federal government owns the area between the edge of the lake and the private land. "We clarified the federal government is the party we need to deal with to resolve that boundary," Johnson said. He said the ruling, together with previous settlements, means that the ownership question for the entire lake is now closer to being settled.

- Tom Harvey