Commissioners

Wade Noble, Chair
Bill Allen, Member
Vacancy, Member
Vacancy, Member
Vacancy, Member

Staff

Evette Cruz, Director
Matthew Rojas, Attorney

The Arizona Navigable Stream Adjudication Commission is a General Fund single budget program commission.

The Comission's first resposibiltiy is to determine which Arizona Rivers and streams were navigable at time of Statehood, February 14, 1912, and which were non-navigable. ANSAC accomplishes this by holding the watercourse evidentiary navigability hearings. This includes using professionals to conduct "paticularized studies" regarding issues that affect navigability. Navigability determinations are necessary for deciding who owns a streambed, that is who owns the land beneath the stream or river. The ANSAC adjudication process is essential for determining whether land beneath the rivers and streams are subject to ownership by the government or by the person whose land a paticular river or stream crosses. Determining ownership is necessary to help clear more than an estimated 100,000 "clouded" property titles. To accomplish this, ANSAC has held more than 160 watercourse navigability hearings, with some hearings including as many as eight days of witness testimony. Some witnesses were private Arizona citizens, Arizona Legislators, Tribal Historians, and many PhD level professionals in areas such as history, geology, hydrology, and marine-archeology. Regarding the three ANSAC cases presently in the Arizona Court of Appeals ANSAC has received thousands of pages of documents-that make up 27 bankers boxes records.