Posted on 04/08/2010 12:55:44 AM PDT by Palter
Colorado Rafters, Anglers Square Off Over Use of Streams Through Private Land
In a clash that some lawmakers have dubbed "Row v. Wade," rafters and anglers are squaring off over rights to prized Colorado waterways.
The debate has spilled into the state legislature and inspired at least 24 citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives. The core question: Do paddlers have an absolute right to float down any river in the state, even rivers that run through private property reserved for fly-fishing?
Steve Roberts says no.
His family owns a 150-acre dude ranch amid the aspens and lodgepole pines of southwest Colorado. The Taylor River runs through the property for three-quarters of a mile, and a few years back, Mr. Roberts spent $100,000 to reshape that stretch of the riverbed into a haven for trout. He makes his living renting cabins to anglers, who come for the plump fish, the Monday night steak fry and, above all, the serenity.
That blissful setting is fairly well destroyed, Mr. Roberts contends, when dozens of rubber rafts come bumping past, crammed with tourists of a less contemplative sort.
"They come bebopping right on through…going over the dam I built for the fish, yelling 'Whee!' " Mr. Roberts says. "I've got 60 boats a day doing that. My guests are unhappy."
Too bad, the rafting community responds. The state constitution declares Colorado's river water a public resource. Private landowners can reasonably lay claim to the structural frame of a river—the bottom, the banks, perhaps even the boulders. "But that doesn't mean they own the water," says Duke Bradford, who owns two commercial rafting companies. "You can't privatize a river."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Mr. Roberts complains about the white-water rafting then you get to the end of the article and finds out his ranch offers it as well. Is this a back handed attempt at limiting competition?
It won’t be long before the Fed steps in and tells both groups they can’t use the waterway for anything.
He rafts elsewhere.
I have a river near my house rated as one of the top trout streams in the nation and the identical problem. In the summer, rafters come bumping (literally, they drag their butts on the rocks) down the river and it’s impossible to fish. I still see it listed in the trout waters ratings but that can only be because the state wants to promote the business brought in by fishermen. The river is unfishable during the summer in my opinion.
As a lifelong stream fisherman, who has both waded and floated, I’ll bump the thread.
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