Legislature May Create Interim Study on Issue
House Committee Kills Montana Stream Access Bill
By Daniel Testa, 4-03-07
After another packed hearing on the issue, the House Fish, Wildlife and Parks Committee Tuesday night voted, 13 to 6, to kill a bill that would have clarified public access to Montana’s streams from county bridges.
Prior to voting on Senate Bill 78, Libby Republican Chas Vincent offered an amendment to change the bill’s language and set up an interim committee to study the issue for two years.
But Billings Democrat Kendall Van Dyk, who supported the bill, quickly moved to table it, saying Vincent’s changes altered the bill’s intent and basically punted the problem downfield for the 2009 legislature to deal with.
“I find it surprising that we would just strip the meat of the bill out rather than have a substantive debate on those merits,” Van Dyk said. “I can smell a delay tactic from across the street.”
Committee Chair Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, answered that the interim committee wasn’t a cop-out, but an attempt to bring landowners to participate in a process from which they have been excluded.
“A lot of times interim studies are delay tactics and I sincerely believe and hope that this is not one of them,” Milburn said.
Sponsored by Sen. Lane Larson, D-Billings, the bill seeks to clarify the legal ways a landowner can attach a fence to a county bridge abutment, such that a recreationist trying to access the river can still easily go over, under, or through it. It passed the Senate 34 to 16.
Previous hearings on the bill have been crowded, emotional affairs with anglers on one side and on the other, landowners and representatives of the Montana Stockgrowers Association and the Farm Bureau Federation saying the bill was a “compromise” that didn’t involve them.
Tuesday’s hearing was no different.
The issue triggers something in Montanans that reaches at firmly-held ideas on the sanctity of private property, the public’s right to access rivers, and the subtle erosion of Western courtesy which seems the result of an influx of out-of-state landowners.
All acknowledged the bill was a state-wide solution aimed at resolving disputes between landowners and anglers on the Ruby River.
“Madison County, that’s where it’s all coming from,” Milburn said after the vote. “Are we going to dictate policy and legislation because of three bridges?”
“This is a Trout Unlimited issue, most landowners don’t have a problem,” Milburn added, saying in most areas of the state total cooperation exists between landowners and recreationists. The Montana chapter of Trout Unlimited helped craft the bill.
Milburn said he will introduce a separate bill to accomplish what the amendments would have done: set up an interim committee to study the issue with input from everyone, including landowners, the Stockgrowers and the Farm Bureau.
Mark Aagenes of Montana Trout Unlimited said he preferred that the bill die than go forward with amendments which would have mangled its intent.
“There’s reasons to vote against a bill and there’s excuses to vote against a bill,” Aagenes said. “All we heard tonight were excuses to vote against stream access at bridges.”
Aagenes said he unsuccessfully tried to contact the Stockgrowers for input crafting the bill.
Van Dyk stood firm on his motion to table the bill, arguing that SB78 was a good compromise between recreationists and landowners in its original form.
“I’m not about to stand around and let a bunch of special interests turn a good access bill into an anti-access bill,” Van Dyk said. “The people back home don’t want this studied, they want action on this.”
Van Dyk considered attempting a “blast” motion to bring the bill to the floor, but that would require 67 votes, a highly unlikely scenario in the Republican-controlled House.
So it appears anyone looking for a decision on the stream access issue will have to look to the Supreme Court for a ruling on the Ruby River case, or wait another two years—whichever comes first.
[End of article]It is obvious the legislators 'caved in' to the rich and famous mostly 'out of state' wealthy with Montana fishing outfitting licenses. I am not a member of any group mentioned a native Montanan and no radical as the committee aludes to and one who likes to fish with my grandson. I have probably been a native Montanan resident longer than the legislators who would deny access to our public streams and rivers from our public county roads for our young Montanan's and others. Yes, you caved in and don't represent the future of out great State.Young Montanans write down the names of these legislators and lets vote them out at election time.VOTE THEM OUT.... THE PROCESS!!
The same legislators graze livestock on state land 'dirt cheap' and farm on state land. Raise the grazing fees to bring in more money for the 'trust' for our schools. Fees way below 'market value'.Why should you get a 'free ride' for grazing fees and deny us public access from county roads? The wealthy get those leases 'dirt cheap' as well. You only pay for grass for a licenced grazing season. Like county roads and rivers and streams state land is ours...PUBLC LAND!!!
Fish,wildlife& Parks committee? What a joke that is. "Wealthy out of state representation committee" ...change the name.
I think Jack says it quite well. So I don't have much to add. The Stockgrowers and Farm Bureau fought Country of Origin labeling too. With the latest food scandal involving Chinese contaminated wheat gluten in pet food and maybe our food too, the Stockgrowers and the So called Farm Bureau are once more on the wrong side of what's good for Montanans. The Stockgrowers as opposed to the Montana Cattlemen's Association is about protecting their private property more than getting good prices for our cattle. I belong to the Cattlemen's who are about protecting our beef supply and who supported Country of ORigin labeling. The Farmer's Union is the good farmer's group. Farm Bureau is an insurance company with nothing to do with small ranches and farms. When will people get tired of being flim flammed.
Comment By Jacks, 4-04-07Thanks feral cat. Raising the fees will also help the 'rural schools' and the feds won't have to be thinking about selling our public land which gets more valuable by the year. Responsible ranchers do you think it is fair when someone like Turner grazes bison on public lands and bison eat twice as forage much as cattle and he pays the same for a cattle AUM? Bison burger selling for 8 times more than beef, bison AUM's should be 8 times higher. I do supports multiple use of public land which includes cattle but not bison. Let make the wealthy pay more to use our land for grazing and don't let them abuse. Sure FWP committee go to the door and ask the wealthy if they will let us walk across the private land to our streams and rivers.How do we get through the locked gates to ask??? What do you say FW&P;legislative committeee?
Comment By Jesse, 4-04-07The bill was poorly written, if passed it would have caused more litigation for the Counties involved. So the State and Federal Highway's are public, but they don't allow fishing or access to the rivers from those bridges, what's the difference. The State and Federal Highway system has fences right up to bridge abutments. So why is the fight just with the Counties? Why does it not hold true to all bridges that go over water? Just another flaw of SB-78.
Comment By Jesse, 4-04-07So Jacks, if you make 8 times more than I do in salary you should pay 8 times more when we go and eat at McDonalds?
Comment By Pat Munday, 4-04-07No, Jesse, it was not a badly written bill. That impression was conveyed by the lawyers representing wealthy nonresident landowners that testified against the bill and managed the PR campaign against it. Note that the counties supported it.
SB 78 received good bipartisan support in the Senate. It wasn't until the pawns of James Cox Kennedy (the media mogul millionaire from Atlanta, Georgia, who owns 3200 acres on the Ruby and who has been trying to close the public out for more than 10 years) got busy that it became a partisan issue in the House.
See http://ecorover.blogspot.com
You have got to be kidding!! I don't need high priced attorneys or rich media moguls to tell me when a Bill is bad, I can read and fully comprehend a bad Bill. No not all the Counties supported it. No County in there right mind would support it, making County Commissioners into fence police, not to mention all the litigation the County would be involved in when passed. No again, Pat, there was no bipartisan support you call 8 republicans that voted yes out of 26 Democrats that voted yes I hardly call that bipartisan. The Stock Growers are far from pawns of Kennedy. You can't leave the Stockgrowers out of the drafting of a Bill that essentially affects the largest group of landowners who have land with water running through it that was handed down from generation to generation for ranching. But that is what this bill did.
Comment By Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers!, 4-05-07This Milburn moron is the only Rethugly to be elected in Cascade Co. And I live in his district! The district encompasses the east side of the Missouri River, my side, the poor side. And unfortunately it also encompasses the other side of the river too, the snob hill side of Fox Farm Rd. area. It's damn hard to elect a Democrat in this district with all them Repubbies on the other side of the river that vote straight Rethugly. But by God with this issue, we just might finally be able to dump this dump sh*t Milburn and get a Dem in there. Hopefully, ol' mikey will cut his own throat with this bill.
Comment By Bob, 4-11-07Facts remain. The county roads are public property for parking vehicles,removing snow, access to public water next to the bridge and the Montana Stream Access Law applies as well.The county representatives want to be re elected so they won't step on any toes to enforce the laws anyway. No red paint and signs allowed on bridges as well. The attorney general should have never turned over any responibility to the counties on this issue. What are we paying him for to pass the buck? Then he makes a pitch about the laws...lip service!
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