DALLAS — Texas landowners who live along a river separating them from Oklahoma have reached a settlement with federal officials saying the Texas border lies with the meandering flow of the river.
A federal judge on Wednesday approved the terms that settle a long-running dispute involving the Bureau of Land Management and property owners along the Red River. The bureau had argued the river has shifted as much as 2 miles in some areas over the past century, and some of the dry land where the river once flowed belonged to the government, not residents who claimed ownership.
However, Robert Henneke, a lawyer for the landowners, said the agency’s claims amounted to an unlawful federal land grab.
The landowners filed a lawsuit in 2015, and were later joined by the state and other parties, after bureau surveyors set markers appearing to lay claim to private land. The land in question spanned 116 miles and involved up to 90,000 acres, according to Henneke, general counsel for the Texas Public Policy Foundation who represented the landowners.