Please help keep Colorado rivers open to boating!

[Michele Jackson]

I received the following response from Claire Levy, State Rep in CO:

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Thank you for writing to me regarding House Bill 1188 and for expressing your desire to broaden it to include private rafting.

The committee that I chair heard the bill over the course of an afternoon and evening. We heard from both ends of the spectrum - from landowners who believe they should be able to exclude people from floating through their property to those who believe that all waters of Colorado that are capable of being navigated belong to the public.

I believe that the constitution and the common law in existence when Colorado became a state, and which therefore is the basis on which any private rights to property were granted, support the notion that the navigable waters of the state of Colorado belong to the public. Commercial and private floaters should have access to these waters. As I understand it, the navigational servitude that encumbers these waters as they flow through private property includes the right to touch the bed and banks as reasonably necessary to make use of the right to float.

Therefore, I reject the notion that allowing people to float the rivers and streams of Colorado creates a trespass or a taking of private property. The rivers were never part of the title the federal government allowed to go into private hands.

I wanted very much to amend House Bill 1188 consistent with that position. But I was informed that support for the bill in its existing form was sufficiently tenuous that the bill would be defeated entirely if I attempted to allow broader access to Colorado's rivers and streams. So I opted to vote yes on HB 1188, and argued in support of the bill during floor debate in the House. I did that even though the bill is seriously flawed in order to preserve access to the river in some form. Had the bill failed, I feared that property owners along the rivers would have proceeded to block access altogether. HB 1188 freezes things to some extent and preserves the ability to allow wider access in the future.

I hope you understand that this was an extremely complex process. In the legislative arena we don't have the luxury of just standing on principle. Preserving some degree of access to rivers required that we convince 33 members of the House and 18 members of the Senate to vote "yes" on the bill. If HB 1188 is passed by the Senate and signed by Governor Ritter, there will be an opportunity in the future to extend its guarantees to all parties.

Sincerely,

Claire Levy
State Representative
House District 13
303-866-2578 (capitol)
303-543-7275 (home office)
720-849-8983 (mobile)