01-05-2003, 05:50 PM
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[#ff0000][#ff0000]This Weeks Winners wins[/#ff0000] [#000000]"[/#000000][url "http://www.fishingcomics.com/"][#0000ff]The Complete Fishing Comic and Joke Book[/#0000ff][/url][#000000]”[/#000000]
[#ff0000]Week Ending 1-11-03:[/#ff0000] [/#ff0000][/center]
If a river crosses private property, is the river bed private property? A fellow angler I know and his lawyer continue to try to get the answer to that question changed to "No". Through a civil suit, they hope to get the Utah Legislature to say the river bed is public property just like the water flowing over it is. The wheels of justice turn slow however, as you can see by the date on this article. They're still trying to get a hearing.[font "Verdana"]
Trespassing charge over river dropped
Sat, May 4, 2002
By TIM GURRISTER
Standard-Examiner staff
OGDEN -- A judge has dismissed a trespassing charge against Keven Conatser regarding public rivers and private property, but the issue of whether you can walk on a river bottom in Utah remains up in the air.
The case promises to stay complicated and drawn out with issues about easements and navigable waterways plus legal differences studied throughout the west.
Montana allows its residents to walk on stream beds, but no digging of holes, explains Conatser’s lawyer Gerald Nielsen of Salt Lake. New Mexico says sometimes, he said.
Wyoming, Nielsen said, says no walking on the streambed, and also don’t anchor on the streambed.
So the parties will vie for various legal precedents to be applied to the case.
"That’s what makes the practice of law so complicated," Nielsen said.
And the case now will proceed via Conatser’s civil suit since 2nd District Judge W. Brent West has dismissed the Morgan County Sheriff’s criminal trespassing charge against Conatser.
Morgan County Attorney Kelly Wright had originally maintained the Roy man and his group were trespassing June 4, 2000, when Conatser walked along the river bottom of the Weber River to pull his raft to the bank of the river.
Wright argued an easement or public access was only for the river, not the streambed.
"The only public easement has to do with water, not real estate," he said during a motion hearing in October.
Wright has since dropped the easement argument, stating that Utah’s trespassing law and any precedent is unclear on whether the public can walk on streambeds.
"The Utah Supreme Court has said on the question of whether the public has an easement in a streambed, we express no opinion," Wright said.
Conflicting evidence
West dismissed the trespassing charge because of conflicting evidence over whether Conatser was on the bank, not the bottom of the river, Wright said.
Conatser’s lawyer Nielsen agrees that Utah’s law is unclear but statute and case law from around the west should allow the Utah Supreme Court to form an opinion. That’s where he’s pushing the case, where he hopes "body and soul" it will wind up.
Up to the Legislature?
Wright thinks the Utah Legislature should decide. "I believe it’s a legislative issue, that lawmakers should decide by debate and the public hearing process. I’m going to leave it up to the public policy makers to balance the rights of the public and the landowners."
In some places Utahns are walking on river bottoms, Nielsen said.
He points to a stretch of the Jordan River downstate where landowners feel the water’s edge, however it varies, is their property line.
In that case, Nielsen believes it’s because a federal "navigable waterway" standard applies, which makes the streambed state property.
He wants to develop the Weber River’s case for the federal navigable waterway standard.
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[#ff0000][#ff0000]This Weeks Winners wins[/#ff0000] [#000000]"[/#000000][url "http://www.fishingcomics.com/"][#0000ff]The Complete Fishing Comic and Joke Book[/#0000ff][/url][#000000]”[/#000000]
[#ff0000]Week Ending 1-11-03:[/#ff0000] [/#ff0000][/center]
If a river crosses private property, is the river bed private property? A fellow angler I know and his lawyer continue to try to get the answer to that question changed to "No". Through a civil suit, they hope to get the Utah Legislature to say the river bed is public property just like the water flowing over it is. The wheels of justice turn slow however, as you can see by the date on this article. They're still trying to get a hearing.[font "Verdana"]
Trespassing charge over river dropped
Sat, May 4, 2002
By TIM GURRISTER
Standard-Examiner staff
OGDEN -- A judge has dismissed a trespassing charge against Keven Conatser regarding public rivers and private property, but the issue of whether you can walk on a river bottom in Utah remains up in the air.
The case promises to stay complicated and drawn out with issues about easements and navigable waterways plus legal differences studied throughout the west.
Montana allows its residents to walk on stream beds, but no digging of holes, explains Conatser’s lawyer Gerald Nielsen of Salt Lake. New Mexico says sometimes, he said.
Wyoming, Nielsen said, says no walking on the streambed, and also don’t anchor on the streambed.
So the parties will vie for various legal precedents to be applied to the case.
"That’s what makes the practice of law so complicated," Nielsen said.
And the case now will proceed via Conatser’s civil suit since 2nd District Judge W. Brent West has dismissed the Morgan County Sheriff’s criminal trespassing charge against Conatser.
Morgan County Attorney Kelly Wright had originally maintained the Roy man and his group were trespassing June 4, 2000, when Conatser walked along the river bottom of the Weber River to pull his raft to the bank of the river.
Wright argued an easement or public access was only for the river, not the streambed.
"The only public easement has to do with water, not real estate," he said during a motion hearing in October.
Wright has since dropped the easement argument, stating that Utah’s trespassing law and any precedent is unclear on whether the public can walk on streambeds.
"The Utah Supreme Court has said on the question of whether the public has an easement in a streambed, we express no opinion," Wright said.
Conflicting evidence
West dismissed the trespassing charge because of conflicting evidence over whether Conatser was on the bank, not the bottom of the river, Wright said.
Conatser’s lawyer Nielsen agrees that Utah’s law is unclear but statute and case law from around the west should allow the Utah Supreme Court to form an opinion. That’s where he’s pushing the case, where he hopes "body and soul" it will wind up.
Up to the Legislature?
Wright thinks the Utah Legislature should decide. "I believe it’s a legislative issue, that lawmakers should decide by debate and the public hearing process. I’m going to leave it up to the public policy makers to balance the rights of the public and the landowners."
In some places Utahns are walking on river bottoms, Nielsen said.
He points to a stretch of the Jordan River downstate where landowners feel the water’s edge, however it varies, is their property line.
In that case, Nielsen believes it’s because a federal "navigable waterway" standard applies, which makes the streambed state property.
He wants to develop the Weber River’s case for the federal navigable waterway standard.
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