free handouts on river rights

[Norm M]

free handouts on river rights

 

https://www.nationalrivers.org/river-law-handouts.html

[fishinwrench]

Yeah.....Hand that to the prosecutor and see what his reaction is.  ?

[snagged in outlet 3]

Or the guy who was going to shoot Chief!

[David Unnerstall]

Make sure, after handing this to a landowner, to mention that Obama and Hillary sent this to you.

[Chief Grey Bear]

7 hours ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

Or the guy who was going to shoot Chief!

Pretty sure that wasn't going to work that day!

[jdmidwest]

That "no trespassing" sign on the lower right of the poster looks like the one that hung on the cable blocking access to the Greer Spring branch all those years on Federal Property.

I smell something fishy with this.  I know of cases lost to landowners and certain state MDC officers enforcing stream access violations. 

Maybe Hoglaw could make a ruling on this.

[Al Agnew]

It's not exactly fishy.  NOR has been pushing this for more than a decade, and it IS based upon real law.  Unfortunately, few if any states follow the federal court cases, believing that state's rights trumps anything federal in this instance.  It seems to me that NOR hopes that at some point, somebody attempting to use this to paddle a river will get arrested, take it to court, and eventually it will go to the Supreme Court and they will win.  Since nothing like that has happened so far, I highly doubt that it will happen in the foreseeable future, unfortunately.  As alluded to above, you can wave this under the nose of a sheriff's department or county prosecutor all you want and they'll ignore it while the court happily fines you. 

[jdmidwest]

This law is back to the states vs federal thing according to the poster in the link  My state says I can go anywhere in the state on a navigable stream.  But they waver on the navigable part in favor of the landowner, aka the "taxpayer" in most cases.  The federal part never comes into play into a state court, so it seem.  Back to Eldor vs Declour.

http://law.justia.com/cases/missouri/supreme-court/1954/44247-0.html

In the one I speak of, Dennig vs Graham, the navigable portion of the Greer Spring Branch was deemed private and the trespass law was upheld.  Many moons ago.

https://casetext.com/case/dennig-v-graham

Other states laws that I fish are more restrictive, I cannot step out on private land without permission on a navigable stream.  I respect that when needed and try to hold the peace when confronted.

Maybe, with a new administration at the helm, we can lobby for a universal right to cover the whole United States.  This would circumvent all of the "State Specific" BS and make it where we would not have to carry a lawyer on our back every time we go fishing..

 

[Al Agnew]

Jd, I agree with most of what you said, but the term "navigable" does not apply, even though people use it all the time in discussing these cases.  Under present law, none of the Ozark float streams are legally navigable.  Elder v Delcour ruled that even though they are NOT navigable, the public has the right to float on them, wade them, fish them, portage around obstructions, and get out on the gravel bars to camp.  In other words, the public has an easement to use them, even though the landowner owns everything but the water and fish.  The doofus legislator from Pulaski County is trying to change all that with his introduced bill, and have them ruled, individually by sections apparently, as "navigable waters of the state".  In that bill, unless a Missouri court specifically ruled a stream section as being a "navigable waterway of the state", it would not be considered such, and the public could be kept off it.  Since Elder v Delcour ruled only that the section of the upper Meramec in question was subject to the easement, it wouldn't count except for that section of the Meramec.  And there have been few other court cases ruling on other streams.

And, there is no way that under the present political climate, legislators would go for making the "law" quoted by NOR valid for all states.  That would go completely against the Republican platform (property rights), and the Republicans are in control. It would be far more likely that this Congress would rule push for just the opposite, not only affirming states' rights, but also encouraging less public access, not more.

[Mark]

The "Issue that never goes away" in Missouri. Local law enforcement doesn't want to touch this issue with a ten foot pole. Landowners will insist they are right, fishermen will insist they are right, and if law enforcement is called, they will just try to diffuse the situation and ask the fishermen to move along to avoid conflict. So we end up with the episode last summer when the man was shot and killed.

Sorry David, no one bit on your comment. But Al is right, there is no way that Republicans are going to side with anyone other than landowners and less public access.