State Supreme Court revives Willow lawsuit

WILLOW — The state’s highest court has breathed new life into a 4-year-old lawsuit over floatplane operations on Willow Lake.

The lawsuit, filed in Anchorage Superior Court in 2008, argues that the State of Alaska improperly imposed rules for summertime use of the lake and designated floatplanes a public nuisance.

The Superior Court threw the case out, saying that the party suing the state, Friends of Willow Lake, didn’t have the right to sue over the plan.

In a ruling issued Friday, Supreme Court Justice Daniel Winfree writes that FOWL had that right and that Superior Court didn’t sufficiently air out all the evidence.

In explaining that first ruling, Winfree pointed out that FOWL formed entirely to deal with these kinds of issues — lake access and property rights.

“FOWL’s claims challenging the (Willow Lake Use Plan) not only are pertinent to its purpose, they are its primary organizational purpose,” Winfree wrote.

But Winfree did uphold one of the lower court’s rulings that the state didn’t have to go through the arduous public process of putting the plan in place that it would have to if the plan constituted a regulation.

FOWL might get traction on another of its contentions, though. The group argues that the plan runs afoul of existing federal law and is thus unconstitutional. In particular, it argues that the plan butts up against U.S. Coast Guard rules for navigable waters. The state and the floatplane operator named as defendants in the suit disagree, pointing to a list of water bodies the Coast Guard considers navigable. Willow Lake is not on them.

“As (the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities) conceded at oral argument before us, the mere omission of Willow Lake from the Coast Guard’s list of navigable internal waters is not sufficient evidence to support a ruling as a matter of law,” Winfree wrote.

A third claim, that Federal Aviation Administration rules also pre-empt state rules for the floatplane lake, might also get legs. Winfree writes that it’s still open for debate since the Superior Court didn’t address it.

The case was sent back to Cuperior Court Judge Peter A. Michalski for more litigation. As of Friday afternoon, the case had not been re-opened, according to court records.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.