Legislative Action Alert from Montana TU

February 15, 2011

HELP STOP A RADICAL STREAM ACCESS BILL

THAT WILL MAKE YOU AN OUTLAW

Please write your Montana State Senator TODAY and tell him or her to vote AGAINST HB 309, an extremist bill sponsored by Rep. Jeff Wellborn (R-Dillon) that severely weakens Montana's stream access law, resulting in many streams you currently fish becoming off limits.

Background:

• HB 309 creates a new definition for "ditches" in Montana's stream access law. It includes natural streams that have been altered by irrigation structures or irrigation return-flows.

• HB 309 would classify hundreds of miles of natural stream channels as "ditches." The stream access law already says the public cannot legally recreate on bona fide irrigation ditches (ie., constructed by humans).

• Hundreds of natural stream and river channels in the state have long been used by irrigators. Though these channels have been hydrologically or otherwise modified by irrigation, they are still natural and have supported angling and legal access for recreation for generations.

If this bill passes, you would break the law if you fished these streams without permission of nearby landowners:

Ruby River below the Ruby irrigation dam

Poindexter Slough on the Beaverhead River

Side channels of the Jefferson River

Fleshman Creek in Livingston

The East Channel of the Bitterroot River near Tucker Crossing as well as Mitchell Slough

Sun River

Spring Creek in Choteau

Milk River below the St. Mary's diversion

Many side channels of the Yellowstone River

The side channels of Rattlesnake Creek in Missoula

The bill says waters that receive diverted water from irrigation – water moved from one channel to another, or which is not consumed by plants but which returns to the original channel -- can be considered irrigation ditches. That means these waters could become "ditches" and off limits to fishing:

Upper Clark Fork River

Bitterroot River

Yellowstone River

Beaverhead River

Big Hole River

Gallatin River

Flint Creek

And most streams and rivers located in irrigated valleys.

Contact your state Senate representative TODAY and tell him or her:

The bill sponsor and supporters such as the Montana Farm Bureau and Montana Stockgrowers Association NEVER contacted anglers before this bill was introduced.

This bill is NOT necessary. It fixes nothing and will result in needless division and lawsuits.  Montana's stream access law is clear, the public is not allowed to recreate on bona fide irrigation ditches nor do we want to.

Tell them Montana's 26-year-old stream access law works just the way it is.

You can find your Senate member's direct e-mail and phone number by clicking here.

Or

Call the Legislative switchboard and leave a message for your Senator at (406) 444-4800.

If you don't know who your Senator is, click here for the Montana Legislature's Find a Legislator page.

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