Public access & private rivers

Senate Bill 1060 was defeated in February of this year in the Oregon State Senate. It would have allowed recreationists using waterways that are either floatable or tidally influenced to access private property adjacent to the water for the purposes of portage or medical emergency. As professional researchers of streams and waterways, we deal with streamside landowners on a regular basis. Over the course of many years we have learned that the issue of gaining public access to privately owned streams and streambanks is complex and challenging.

Conflicts between recreation, land management, and private landowners are unavoidable given the complex overlap of interests which takes place within a stream network. A first step should be to clarify the law surrounding public access to privately owned waterways. This bill would have done this by sanctioning access to all of the ground around the stream channel for the purposes of recreation. From a certain perspective, this might potentially have simplified our professional work by increasing access to the stream corridor. Despite this I feel it would have been inconsiderate to owners to allow access their property. If recreational use is sufficient to allow legal access to private property, it opens the door to other future public uses.

We suggest that some ways to address the issue of public use of privately owned waterways are to clarify the wording and implementation of existing law, to make it easier to identify the location of property boundaries, and to develop ways for property owners and potential users of the stream to communicate with one another. In our own work surveying streams throughout Oregon, we contact each individual landowner directly to obtain permission to collect data. This can be a time consuming and difficult process. Clarifying where streams can be accessed, and simplifying the granting of permission would be a major step in the right direction. A registry where landowners indicate their willingness to grant access for various activities such as fishing, hunting, and environmental research is one idea to streamline the process. The state would then provide the basics information (maps, phone numbers, etc.) needed to identify appropriate areas to access.

Currently those waterways designated as navigable are publicly owned, and generally have some limited public access. Logs and other debris are commonly removed from these waterways to ease boat passage, thus impacting stream health. It is concerning to think that expanded recreational usage of privately owner waterways might interfere with stream restoration and recovery. It is critical that any modification of existing laws consider the potential impacts to important stream and riparian habitat. The health and function of our streams and estuaries should be the first priority.