Tide Water

Water which flows and reflows with the tide. All arms of the sea, bays, creeks, coves, or rivers, in which the tide ebbs and flows, are properly denominated "tide waters." The term "tide water" is not limited to water which is salt, but embraces, also, so much of the water of fresh rivers as is propelled backwards by the ingress and pressure of the tide. 5 Coke, 107; 2 Done. has decided that, although the current of the river Mississippi at New Orleans may be so strong as not to be turned backwards by the tide, yet if the effect of the tide upon the current is so great as to occasion a regular rise and fall of the water, it might properly be said to be within the ebb and flow of the tide.

7 Pet. (U. S.) 324.

The flowing, however, of the waters of a lake into a river, and their reflowing, being caused by the occasional swell and subsidence of the lake, and not by the ebb and flow of regular tides, do not constitute such a river a tidal, or, technically, navigable, river.

20 Johns. (N. Y.) 98. And see 17 Johns. (N. Y.) 195; 2 Conn. 481; Woolr. Waters, c. ii.; Angell, Tide Waters, c. iii.