Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Legislative Alert Take Action to Protect Your Access

We recevied this legislative alert and ask you to take action right away!

Montana TU Legislative Alert - February 7, 2009

Your help needed today! Help defeat SB 314, the radical anti-stream access bill.

Background
Sen. Rick Laible (R-Victor) is sponsoring SB 314, a bill that will dramatically reduce the number of streams in the state that you can legally access for fishing.

Sen. Laible seems to be carrying this bill for a few landowners - several who are not even Montanans -- who live along Mitchell Slough, a natural side-channel of the Bitterroot River. For years, a few of these landowners have been employing legal actions to have Mitchell Slough declared off limits to public access.

Last October the Montana Supreme Court unanimously rejected the landowners' strategy to have the stream declared not "natural" and thus the stream access law wouldn't apply. Now, the landowners, with Sen. Laible's help are seeking to close the stream by having the Legislature re-define what a stream is.

In order to help a few landowners who have lost their case in the state's highest court, Sen. Laible's bill will turn the stream access law on its head by creating a new definition that could make hundreds of other streams in the state off-limits to access.

SB 314 says that a stream is open for access only if it flows perennially without the benefit of return flows from irrigation. However, one reason some streams aren't "perennial" is because they are dewatered by irrigation or occasionally by drought.

SB 314 further says that Class 2 streams that receive return flows from irrigation are not open for access. This includes most streams in many agricultural valleys. SB 314 then says that when an irrigator takes water from a stream, puts it on crops, and the remaining diverted water flows back into the stream, it makes the stream not "natural" and thus off-limits to access.

This occurs with most every stream in most irrigated valleys in Montana, including many in Sen.Laible's own district -streams that the public have been legally accessing for decades. Besides eliminating access, SB 314 provides incentives for some landowners to completely dry up streams.

SB 314 undermines the Montana Supreme Court's decision on what a stream is for access purposes, and it violates the Montana Constitution by saying that the water found in some streams is NOT owned by the public.

You can help stop this radical bill by doing four things:
  1. Respectfully contact Sen. Laible TODAY and urge him to drop the measure. Tell him he should represent all Montanans by preserving the stream access law. Call him at 406-444-4800 during regular business hours and leave a message. Or e-mail him at ricklaible@aol.com .
  2. Contact other members of the Senate Natural ResourceCommittee, where the bill will be heard, and tell them to oppose SB314. They are:

3. Contact your state senator and tell them to oppose SB 314 because it undermines our finely honed access law for the benefit of a few.

4. Write a letter to the editor of your paper asking the public to oppose SB 314 because it harms all Montanans for the benefit of a special few.

TAKE ACTION NOW OR LOSE YOUR ACCESS TOMORROW!!! I did two of the four today!

Posted by Joe Esparza at 10:18 AM

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