A bill that has divided rafters and private property owners was the subject of hours of testimony Monday in a Senate committee Monday. At odds in HB1188 are landowners with rivers passing through their property and the rafters who travel those waterways and consider it their entitlement under a 1970s Colorado Supreme Court ruling that allows them to do so, provided they don't touch the banks or the beds of rivers. The impetus for the bill is a Western Slope dispute between a developer along the Taylor River who is threatening to close passage through his property. Proponents of the bill in the rafting community contend that if it isn't passed, developers can commence snatching up stretches of the river and shutting them down to passage. The bill's opponents — ranchers and farmers among them — said it presents a license to trespass and harms the value of their property...read more
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Debate rages over rafting through private property
A bill that has divided rafters and private property owners was the subject of hours of testimony Monday in a Senate committee Monday. At odds in HB1188 are landowners with rivers passing through their property and the rafters who travel those waterways and consider it their entitlement under a 1970s Colorado Supreme Court ruling that allows them to do so, provided they don't touch the banks or the beds of rivers. The impetus for the bill is a Western Slope dispute between a developer along the Taylor River who is threatening to close passage through his property. Proponents of the bill in the rafting community contend that if it isn't passed, developers can commence snatching up stretches of the river and shutting them down to passage. The bill's opponents — ranchers and farmers among them — said it presents a license to trespass and harms the value of their property...read more
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
It's high time in the West, indeed throughout America, that water rights and the arcane laws that have been passed along since the settling of this country were revisited.
These are no doubt just the opening salvos of a debate that is bound to continue into the foreseeable future.
It is also high time for all Americans to start becoming more comfortable learning to compromise.
Post a Comment