Utah Legislature: Recreational property bill moves to Senate

SALT LAKE CITY — What is being touted as the answer to a controversial Utah Supreme Court decision that addressed public recreational access to waterways on private property cleared the House last week on a 50-24 vote.

The passage of the measure came on the heels of a defeat of a competing bill this week that opponents said gave too much sway to anglers and other recreationists at the expense of landowners.

Instead, HB141 in its current version tips the scale toward more balance between the often competing and contrary interests of anglers and private property owners, said sponsor Rep. Kay McIff, R-Richfield.

"This puts it where we were before last season," in which the court ruling generated an ambiguous gap that "created an attitude of entitlement" among recreationists, McIff said. "What authority do we have as legislators to say to one group of people that you can go on the lands of these other people without their consent, without their will, without any compensation?"

McIff's bill garnered the support of the Utah Farm Bureau, tasked with looking out for the interests of farmers and ranchers who complained unrestricted access to their property led to damages, liability and the inability to appropriately safeguard their crops and livestock.

Aside from exempting certain kinds of wetlands, migratory bird production areas and irrigation canals and ditches from the classification of "public waterways," the bill allows access to those areas with a private property owner's permission and requires recreationists to clean up after themselves.

It also allows public access to waterways on private property if there has been a "continuous" and historical recreational use of the area for 10 years that has been "open, notorious and without interruption."

Recreationists have the option, under the measure, to legally petition to have a recreational easement established to allow access.

The competing measure, HB 80, by Rep. Lorie Fowlke, R-Orem, was vehemently opposed by the Utah Farm Bureau and didn't gain much favor with conservative lawmakers, despite a year's worth of work she poured into by crafting what she said was a compromise.

Fowlke's bill looked to define the access corridor for those recreating on Utah waterways as the water itself, and the adjoining bank or shore up to the "ordinary high water mark," a spot she said was not the flood level, or highest point the water has been, rather its seasonal, regular high-flow mark. It failed.

After Tuesday's successful passage of McIff's measure, Rep. Steve Mascaro, R-West Jordan, urged his colleagues to rise for standing ovation recognizing the hard work that went into both bills. He called Tuesday's vote "historic."

See the bills at le.utah.gov/~2010/htmdoc/hbillhtm/hb0080.htm and le.utah.gov/~2010/htmdoc/hbillhtm/hb0141s01.htm.

e-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com