Unfortunately it doesn't seem so. Big money and out-of-state interests are still trying their best to ruin Montana. The following is taken from a November 2, article in the Missoulian.
BUTTE – Conservative property rights groups and conservation
organizations have become involved in the bitter, eight-year legal fight
over access to Montana streams from bridges.
Two conservative
groups – the United Property Owners of Montana and the Political Economy
Research Center – have filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the case
between a sportsmen’s group and Madison County. In addition, Montana
Trout Unlimited has entered the fray on the other side to support the
Public Lands Access Association in the case.
The lawsuit,
originally filed in 2004, was against the county over access to the Ruby
River, near Sheridan, from a bridge on the property of James Cox
Kennedy, a billionaire media heir. The case prompted the passage of a
law by the Legislature that guaranteed bridge access from established
county roads, but this year a Madison County district judge ruled that
access for recreational use is not guaranteed on roads established by a
historic use through a prescriptive easement.
Bruce Farling,
Montana Trout Unlimited executive director, said the case has become the
latest in a series of attempts to overturn the state’s stream access
law. That law guarantees anglers and recreationists the right to access
public waters by staying within the ordinary high water mark of rivers
and streams.
“They want to wreck the stream access law to keep
people off of three bridges,” he said. “It could have some pretty big
implications around the state.”
Follow the link to read more.
More groups join stream access suit.
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