Bridge-access bill advances in the Senate

HELENA – A bill that supporters say will solve the dispute over public land use between landowners and outdoor enthusiasts is heading to the Senate floor after it passed out of committee, 7-2.

House Bill 190, sponsored by Rep. Kendall Van Dyk, D-Billings, would allow public access to waterways at bridges while also allowing landowners to connect fences to bridges and abutments to contain their livestock. Landowners would have to modify those fences to allow access. Such work would be administered and paid for by the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Supporters of the bill say it is a hard earned compromise worked out between landowners, recreationists, environmental groups and state agencies. Opponents say the bill is incomplete because it does nothing to address the issue of prescriptive easements, which are roads that have been used by the public for so long that the county gets right of way, whether or not it runs through private land.

The Senate version of the bill includes language aiming to protect landowner from legal liability for recreationists' accidents. It also says that it's not the state's intent to create or extinguish any prescriptive easement.

The bill passed out of the House at the end of January with a 93-7 vote.

Disputes over stream access have been a legislative staple since 1985, when lawmakers enacted Montana’s landmark law allowing recreational access to the beds and banks of the state’s navigable waterways.

This session's debate reflects a Madison County judge’s October ruling granting recreationists a right to access streams and rivers from bridges in the public right of way. But it also gave landowners a right to build fences up to those bridges to control their livestock.

-by CNS correspondent Molly Priddy