A Wall Street Journal story last month about strife between floaters and riparian landowners caught my attention.
“In this political battle a river runs through it,” tells about a clash in Colorado over the use of rivers flowing through private property, particularly fishing lodges. The burning question: Do paddlers have the right to travel down all state waterways?
The controversy over water rights and use is not a new one in the West. Greg Hobbs – an associate justice on the Colorado Supreme Court, a legal expert and writer on water issues, and a sometime visitor to the Ozarks – once told me they had two main types of cases before their court: murder and water. I suspect on occasion the two may be joined in a single case.
The current issue in Colorado pits fishing lodge owners who cater to trout fishermen against floaters who disrupt the relative serenity and concentration of fly fishing.
Of the floaters, one lodge owner says, “They come bopping right on through … going over the dam I built for the fish, yelling ‘Whee!’ I’ve got 60 boats a day doing that. My guests are unhappy.”
Like most states, Colorado’s constitution provides that the rivers of the state are a public resource and thus available for public use and enjoyment. At the same time, and again like most states, riparian landowners can lay claim to the bottom and banks of a stream. Thus a person wading in a stream or stepping on a bank could, in an extreme case, be construed as trespassing. Conveyance in a raft or boat on the river would meet constitutional muster. The issue is a hot one in Colorado, however, with legislation now being considered to clarify water use rights and a court decision down the road (or river) possible.
Although there is no issue in the Ozarks equivalent to that in Colorado right now, these kinds of conflicts involving water use are not unknown. The legal framework here is much the same as in Colorado, with riparian ownership and use rights lodged largely in case law. There have been, and occasionally still on occasion may be, issues involving conflicts between floaters on Ozark streams and adjacent landowners.
Floaters camping on gravel bars occasionally may be confronted by landowners not wanting them there. Summer floaters of a crude and oafish sort may throw beer cans in the river, talk loudly and obnoxiously, and litter gravel bars and banks with trash. Landowners will rightly be aggravated by these behaviors that do nothing to promote harmonious use of our rivers and streams. As a riparian myself on the lower James River, I’ve often thought about stationing a troll along the river to monitor our summer floaters! The problems have never been severe, though, and I’ll likely resist the temptation.
Thankfully, we do not have problems of the intensity as those now reported in our neighbor to the west.
The long-term solution is thoughtful consideration and sensitivity by floaters and landowners alike. We have a wonderful resource in the Ozarks which can be shared for all of us to use and enjoy.
John E. Moore Jr., executive director of the Upper White River Basin Foundation, can be reached at jmoore@uwrb.org.[[In-content Ad]]
