From The Wall Street Journal (Stephanie Simon):
That blissful setting is fairly well destroyed, [Steve Roberts] contends, when dozens of rubber rafts come bumping past, crammed with tourists of a less contemplative sort. “They come bebopping right on through…going over the dam I built for the fish, yelling ‘Whee!’ ” Mr. Roberts says. “I’ve got 60 boats a day doing that. My guests are unhappy.”
Too bad, the rafting community responds. The state constitution declares Colorado’s river water a public resource. Private landowners can reasonably lay claim to the structural frame of a river—the bottom, the banks, perhaps even the boulders. “But that doesn’t mean they own the water,” says Duke Bradford, who owns two commercial rafting companies. “You can’t privatize a river.”
More 2010 Colorado elections coverage here. More HB 10-1188 coverage here.