Clear as mud

A long anticipated lawsuit that challenged whether it’s legal to wade in Colorado rivers as they pass through private property ended with a bit of a thud. And by that, we mean, there was no decision.

The question of public access to Colorado waterways goes back decades. This particular spat, however, began in 2012 when Colorado Springs resident Roger Hill waded through a stretch of private property in the Arkansas River to fish. The private property owner hurled rocks at Hill (because that’s a normal person’s reaction) and later claimed in court Hill was trespassing. Hill, on the other hand, argued that the Arkansas River and other waterways are a state-controlled resource, and therefore the public has every right to wade, fish and recreate in them.

State law, however, is not entirely clear on ­who owns the riverbed. In fact, Colorado has some of the weirdest river-access laws in the United States. Whereas federal law says all “navigable” rivers once used for commerce belong to states, thereby allowing recreation, Colorado has maintained in court that it has no navigable rivers.

The lack of clarity has, of course, led to tensions between private landowners and recreationists over the years. According to a report in High Country News, a group of rafters in 1976 were convicted of trespassing after bumping the bottom of the Colorado River, east of Kremmling. Ever since, the general rule of thumb is you can float through private property, just don’t get out of the boat and touch the riverbed.

Which is why, in 2018, Hill sued the private property owners, along with the State of Colorado, hoping to resolve the issue once and for all. Over the ensuing five years, the case has gone through the ringer in the court system, ultimately landing in the Colorado Supreme Court.

Last week, the Colorado Supreme Court put an end to the lawsuit, yet shed zero clarity on public-access laws. Essentially, the court said Hill has no legal standing to bring forth the lawsuit, only the State of Colorado does. In fact, Hill would have to go back and be arrested for trespassing to technically have legal standing. So, after all that, we’re back where we started. Cool.

(Also, for those wondering about the boaters shot at on the Animas River, south of Durango, which we reported in the May 25 issue, the boater in question, Stephen Eginoire, told us Wednesday he still has not heard from the Southern Ute Indian Tribe about the investigation.)