Here’s a long recap of the issues around HB 10-1188, from Forrest Whitman writing for the Weekly Register-Call/ Gilpin County News. Click through and read the whole thing. Here’s an excerpt:
Last summer Greg Felt said he’d rather die than give up his right to float. Felt is one passionate boater! He laments that despite the fact the state licenses river guides and the federal government issues permits on individual rivers, boaters still paddle under the legal cloud of civil trespass. Last summer he asked, “Do boaters have to become lawyers?” Greg tells some hair-raising tales, including being “sighted in” by a rifleman (who didn’t shoot). For now he’s going to keep floating, he says, no matter what. Said he, it’s “float or die”…
Law gets worked out anew in each generation and river law is no exception. The Curry bill now being debated in the CO State Senate is just one more part of that working out. [Colorado’s first Territorial Governor, Willaim Gilpin] had great faith in the wisdom of “the Great Coloradoan people” to figure out these questions. If we ever do guarantee a right to float, old William Gilpin will be smiling down from the golden dome in Denver. He, at least, knew those boaters on Clear Creek have a right to be there.
More coverage from the Aspen Daily News (Curtis Wackerle):
In six years at the state Legislature, Rep. Kathleen Curry said she has never been involved in a more controversial bill than her “right to float” bill, which the state Senate last week punted to a study committee…
The bill [is] back [in] the House now, and Curry must decide what her next step is. She could go to a conference committee and attempt to convince some of her fellow legislators to move away from the study provision. She was not optimistic that she would end up with the support she needs to pass the bill without the study provision, however…
The amendment “turned the bill into a study, which is a waste of time,” Curry said, noting that studies of the issue have occurred before…
Rachel Nance, a legislative coordinator with the Colorado Association of Realtors, said her group was also concerned about infringing on private property rights. They felt that the proposal went too far, and that the status quo, which allows boaters to float down the middle of a river, but requires them to obtain permission to step on the banks on private land, is good enough, she said.
…the issue is not confined to the Taylor River, [Bob Hamel, head of the Colorado River Outfitters Association] said, noting a similar threat going into this summer on the Yampa River made by a landowner to a commercial float fishing company, and a long line of similar incidents for the past 30 years. “The problem is it keeps resurfacing,” Hamel said. Curry agrees. The state’s rafting industry “is wondering who is going to be next,” she said.
With Curry and the rafting industry opposed to the study provision, forces are gathering for a November ballot question on a right to float law. Should that happen, the ballot language would likely be less friendly to landowners than the compromise bill Curry had carried. For example, a ballot question would likely include private boaters, which Curry’s bill excluded, and would likely include the portage provision. The deadline to file language initiating a ballot question is Friday. “If you think it’s big fanfare now … just wait until we go on TV,” Hamel said.
More 2010 Colorado legislation coverage here.