Senators endorse bridge-access legislation

HELENA – The state Senate today gave initial approval to a bill that would allow anglers, floaters and hikers to gain access to the state's rivers and streams via public bridges on public roads. The vote was 47-2.

House Bill 190, carried in the Senate by Sen. Jim Shockley, R-Victor, allows recreational 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.

“It ain’t perfect, but there’s no such thing as a perfect fish and game bill,” Shockley said. “Nobody’s totally happy, but most the people are pretty happy.”

The Senate voted to add amendments to the bill, including one that would allow landowners to have wood-rail fences along the river access points as long as people can get to the water. Another amendment changed the bill to say only one access point is necessary on a given stretch of river, instead of the original four.

Previous Senate amendments to the bill gave landowners more protection from liability for recreationists’ accidents.

The bill’s sponsor in the House, Rep. Kendall Van Dyk, D-Billings, supported all of the amendments.

Supporters said it represents a good compromise between landowners, recreationists, environmental groups and state agencies. Opponents said it does not solve the problem because it does not address 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.

HB 190 passed the House in January with a large majority as well, 97-3.

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