Stream access politics

[Al Agnew]

Living part time out here in Montana, we get to watch the political process in a state that's much different from Missouri, even though we can't participate.  And the things that become hot button issues out here are interesting.  One of the bigger ones is stream access, and public land access.  Without getting too far into the partisan weeds, I would have thought that the Republicans, with their property rights stance in so many places, would be less friendly to public access to streams flowing across private property, and perhaps less friendly as well to keeping access open across private ground to public lands.  I would have also thought that they might be more open to selling off some public lands, given that some Republicans in other states are all for it.

But, these issues have come up front and center in a number of statewide races, including both the governor's race and the race for Montana's lone House seat.  The incumbent governor, running for a second term, is a Democrat.  The incumbent Congressman, also running for a second term, is a Republican.  The Democrat in both races has been running ads for months saying that their opponent is trying to shut down stream access and access to public lands.  And the Republican in both races is doing their best to counter these ads.  All four of these candidates are trying to outdo the others in how much they hunt and fish and how much they appreciate streams and public lands and support keeping them open.  It appears that everybody thinks that the vast majority of Montanans, no matter which party they like, wants to keep all their access options open.

I wish Missouri had Montana's stream access laws.  Apparently Montana politicians realized back in the 1980s that fishing related tourism is a huge economic factor, and voted in one of the most (I'd call in enlightened) stream access laws in the nation.  Basically, if you can legally get onto a stream, no matter what size it is as long as it's big enough to hold fish, you have the right to wade it as far as you want over as many parcels of private land as you want as long as you stay within the high water banks of the stream.  There are few exceptions to this law, mostly completely privately owned spring creeks where the landowners usually charge anglers by the day to fish, but for the most part, if it's fishable you can fish it.  There have also been some problems with county road departments prohibiting parking at bridge crossings in a few places, but they have mostly been spots where the parking was nearly non-existent anyway.  I've fished stretches of the Boulder River where the access was a spot barely big enough to get one car off the highway at the bridge, with no problems.  Landowners can fence off the stream at the bridge crossing to control their livestock, but the state pays for gates, stiles, or other ways for anglers to cross the fences.

And some rich landowners, including, most famously, Huey Lewis of rock and roll fame, have continually tried to shut off access to their stream sections, but courts have continually rebuffed those efforts.  This is one of the things that the incumbent governor has accused his challenger of doing, apparently with good reason, but the challenger has replied that he supports stream access.  The House race is focusing more on selling public lands, which the Democrat challenger has accused (again with good reason, apparently, according to what he's said in the past) the Republican incumbent of advocating, and his answering ads saying he's against selling off the lands and hunts and fishes on public land a lot--the ads even show him fly fishing, with a stern, serious look on his face (they don't show enough, though, to tell if he really knows what he's doing as far as fly casting).

Montana's access law is unusual in the West, to say the least.  There are many, many miles of the premier trout streams in states like Colorado and Wyoming that are closed to the public.  But the Montana law appears to be working extremely well, with landowners for the most part living with it easily and everybody else happy with the money that angling brings to the state.

Meanwhile, in Missouri, our laws are far more ambiguous and far less enlightened, even though the court cases that delineate stream access have made Missouri more friendly to stream users than many states are.  The issue only comes up when there's some kind of conflict between a landowner and a river user that results in fights or shootings.  Apparently, even though tourism is pretty important to this state's economy as well, the issue is not important enough to register on the political radar. 

But one of these days, it's going to become important, as more and more people with money buy up large chunks of land on the floatable streams and attempt to shut off or limit access. I wonder which way we'll swing when the politicians get involved.

[Terrierman]

Our state Highway Department and many County Commissions are culpable in cutting off stream access points here in Missouri.  It really is a problem.  There are multiple places where there are no parking signs on both sides of county roads for hundreds of yards on either sides of bridges over streams here in SWMO.  And multiple places where MODOT has blocked access to streams on highway ROW.  Often done in the name of keeping out riff raff.  To me, that's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  The public wants, needs and deserves stream access.  Those are public lands and if law enforcement needs to get involved in a problem area, then they need to take care of it, not close it off to everyone.  That's a lazy and very poor approach in my opinion.

[Quillback]

Washington State had the same law regarding rivers as Montana does now.  You could float or wade anywhere as long as you stayed within the high water mark.  Never heard any politicians try and change it, I guess because it had always been that way.

 

[Al Agnew]

7 hours ago, Terrierman said:

Our state Highway Department and many County Commissions are culpable in cutting off stream access points here in Missouri.  It really is a problem.  There are multiple places where there are no parking signs on both sides of county roads for hundreds of yards on either sides of bridges over streams here in SWMO.  And multiple places where MODOT has blocked access to streams on highway ROW.  Often done in the name of keeping out riff raff.  To me, that's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  The public wants, needs and deserves stream access.  Those are public lands and if law enforcement needs to get involved in a problem area, then they need to take care of it, not close it off to everyone.  That's a lazy and very poor approach in my opinion.

Same thing on this side of the state, most notably the 47 Highway bridge on the Mineral Fork.  That bridge has been used as an access since forever, but now has no parking signs for hundreds of yards surrounding it.  This is one of my pet peeves; as you say, the reason usually given is too much partying and litter, but if law enforcement was doing their job as they should, there wouldn't be those problems.  Areas like that should be easy to police, and it wouldn't take many times of the cops showing up to discourage the bad behavior, but instead they use it as an excuse to shut the whole thing down.  And a lot of times, it IS mainly an excuse; the real reason is that the influential landowner there wants to shut it off.

I cringe when I make plans to put in or take out at a bridge crossing where I haven't been in a while these days, because I never know whether it will be shut off.  I wish I was confident that we in Missouri could have the legislature on our side if, for instance, the Conservation Federation made a push to keep bridge crossings open for access, but I suspect there's zero chance of that happening.

[Flysmallie]

7 minutes ago, Al Agnew said:

Same thing on this side of the state, most notably the 47 Highway bridge on the Mineral Fork.  That bridge has been used as an access since forever, but now has no parking signs for hundreds of yards surrounding it.  This is one of my pet peeves; as you say, the reason usually given is too much partying and litter, but if law enforcement was doing their job as they should, there wouldn't be those problems.

Yep. One of my favorite accesses on the James is now like this. Used to catch a ton of fish in that area, but because some can't control themselves we just close the access and make everyone suffer. 

[Mitch f]

7 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

Same thing on this side of the state, most notably the 47 Highway bridge on the Mineral Fork.  That bridge has been used as an access since forever, but now has no parking signs for hundreds of yards surrounding it.  This is one of my pet peeves; as you say, the reason usually given is too much partying and litter, but if law enforcement was doing their job as they should, there wouldn't be those problems.  Areas like that should be easy to police, and it wouldn't take many times of the cops showing up to discourage the bad behavior, but instead they use it as an excuse to shut the whole thing down.  And a lot of times, it IS mainly an excuse; the real reason is that the influential landowner there wants to shut it off.

I cringe when I make plans to put in or take out at a bridge crossing where I haven't been in a while these days, because I never know whether it will be shut off.  I wish I was confident that we in Missouri could have the legislature on our side if, for instance, the Conservation Federation made a push to keep bridge crossings open for access, but I suspect there's zero chance of that happening.

The Cops don't patrol on Sundays

[Terrierman]

On ‎10‎/‎21‎/‎2016 at 9:55 AM, Flysmallie said:

Yep. One of my favorite accesses on the James is now like this. Used to catch a ton of fish in that area, but because some can't control themselves we just close the access and make everyone suffer. 

Lemme guess.  Highway 125 Bridge.

[Flysmallie]

3 minutes ago, Terrierman said:

Lemme guess.  Highway 125 Bridge.

WE HAVE A WINNER!!

That was a good quick place to hit after work. 

[chillin the most]

Missouri Representative Robert Ross (R) has introduced House Bill HB556 and it was read on Jan 10 and again on January 11, 2017. 

This bill "codifies provisions related to the navigability of Missouri's waters" 

I am not able to locate much of substance about this but I remember conversations where Mr. Ross represents the interests of landowners on the upper Big Piney and Gasconade with intent to deny access to floaters.  

Does anyone have any new information about this?

http://www.house.mo.gov/BillContent.aspx?bill=HB556&year=2017&code=R&style=new

[Flysmallie]

http://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills171/hlrbillspdf/1275H.01I.pdf

 

http://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills171/sumpdf/HB0556I.pdf