The long-running Mitchell Slough case – where wealthy Montana landowners tried to bar public access to a Montana waterway and challenge Montana’s enlightened Stream Access Law – looks to be over.
And it appears the good guys won.
The Montana State Supreme Court refused to rehear the case, leaving in place a decision that should put wide, wide smiles on the faces of fly fishermen:
The Montana Supreme Court will not rehear the Mitchell Slough case.
In an order issued last week, the court turned down two petitions seeking a rehearing on the court’s ruling in November that the slough was a natural waterway and therefore subject to state law for streambed permitting and public access.
“It’s a done deal now except for the formalities,†said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Park’s Chief Legal Council Bob Lane.
The 16-mile-long Mitchell Slough has been mired in controversy for years. The channel runs on the east side of the Bitterroot River between Hamilton and Stevensville through private property, including lands owned by 1980s rocker Huey Lewis.
The two petitions seeking a rehearing were filed by landowners who argued the Supreme Court overlooked material evidence when it issued its ruling on the slough’s status. Landowners argued – and two state district courts earlier agreed – that the slough had been dramatically altered over the years and was no longer a natural stream.
The Supreme Court disagreed and overturned two earlier state district court rulings.
Somedays you’re the trout, somedays you’re the stuck-in-the-shuck emerger. Today we’re all trout.
See you out of court, Tom Chandler.
YEE HAW! Best news I’ve heard this entire year! Thanks for passing it along.
- scott c
cutthroat stalker(Quote)
I suggest a “Trout Underground Conclave” be held within the banks of the slough…say, three or four thousand of us singing, “hey Huey, have you heard the news.” While there we could all contribute twenty bucks or more each to assist in the continuing fight.
On to Colorado!
Turnip Truck Driver(Quote)
Turnip: You just invented Troutstock. “We advise everyone to not take any of the Aquel, a few flies have seen bad trips, man.”
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Instead of singing and celebrating why don’t you get your buddies to come out here and do some of the physical work that the landowners have been doing for the last twenty years to make the Mitchell what it is today?
The reality is that opening the Mitchell to unlimited public access is destroying it and the fish populations in the slough and the Bitterroot River will suffer because of it. How can someone claiming to support ecologically sound fishing practices endorse a decision that requires fishermen to wade the streambed of a perennial spawning ground? How does it help the fish to legally prevent the landowners from continuing the conservation efforts that made the Mitchell worth fishing the in first place? Do you think FWP is going to do anything proactive to manage this resource?
Conservation groups and fishermen need to stop engaging in class warfare and deal with the uncomfortable reality that this is a bad thing for the fish. Hearing people who don’t understand the big picture celebrate this decision doesn’t sit well with me when I have to watch the Mitchell deteriorate on a daily basis.
You call yourself an Independent Voice but you’re just mimicking everything you read in the papers about this case. I would like to formally invite Mr. Chandler to come to Montana and see the Mitchell first hand. I’ll put you up and give you the $3 tour. You might even catch some fish. If you leave here convinced that this was a good thing for the Mitchell or the Bitterroot River I’ll buy you a bottle of champagne for your victory party. Until then please stop celebrating in your ignorance.
Greg Trangmoe(Quote)
OK. You’ve said my comments were “ignorant.” Now I get to say your comment looks, feels and smells like one big (stinky) red herring.
We both know the landowners on Mitchell Slough weren’t using this legal challenge to preserve fish, they were trying to keep the public off water they’re legally allowed to access.
Simply put, this wasn’t conservation; it was yet another legal assault on Montana’s stream access law, and I don’t see a word of that particular reality anywhere in your comment (outside of the alarmist statement about “unlimited public access” which feels like thinly veiled code for “those people”).
You accuse everyone else of engaging in class warfare, yet the landowners who began this fight simply don’t want the huddled masses doing what they’re legally entitled to.
Class warfare, it seems, is OK if you belong to the right class.
As for “bad for fish,” I’m simply going to say this: That moves the needle beyond “red herring” and into the “absurdist theater” zone.
Do you really expect us to believe that Mitchell Slough access is causing fish populations on the Bitterroot to plummet? That wading fly fishermen – who wade in ever greater density in rivers all over the country which still feature sizable fish populations – are destroying everything in sight?
Of course, if they are, the solution to the wading issue is easy; landowners could graciously afford a 10′ bank easement to fishermen (just like they have on the Big Wood River in Idaho).
Problem solved.
That landowners engaged in restoration projects – that increased their own property values and enjoyment – is irrelevant in the face of Montana’s public access law, yet that’s precisely the law the landowners went after.
And we all know they didn’t do it out of concern for fisheries. Nobody’s buying that.
If landonwers were truly concerned, then working with groups like Montana’s state TU Chapter would have yielded better results than heavy-handed legal assaults on public access.
Celebrate? Yeah. Hell yeah. In my own county I fought a proposed “land use plan” that would have ended legal public access to our rivers; why would I act any differently in Montana?
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Harrumph! I suggest a party and you get the invite…. lodging, guided trip and champagne, no less. TC, you should take Mr. Trangmoe up on his offer. This could be the Underground’s equivalent of Sixty Minutes, and er, I’d recommend leaving those red wigglers and plastic bobbers behind.
Turnip Truck Driver(Quote)
Tom, I don’t expect you to believe anything I said just because I said it. If all I knew about this case is what I read on the Internet and in the newspaper I’d probably feel the same way you do about it. That’s why I invited you to come out and see things for yourself and form your own opinion.
And for the record I’m not a “Bad Guy” or “one of the haves”. Anyone who knows me would find both of those claims pretty laughable. Again, a little knowledge goes a long way towards an informed opinion.
Greg Trangmoe(Quote)
Greg: I appreciate your position, but we’re stuck in different places.
Are you trying to convince me this is not another legal assault on Montana’s stream access laws (one of many launched the last few years), funded by wealthy “new” landowners like Huey Lewis and James Cox Kennedy – who clearly have money, and don’t want the public around?
And to be blunt, your circumstances aren’t particularly relevant in the larger legal access picture.
You don’t get to fence out the public because you don’t want them to have access.
For example, Lewis and a few others have effectively ended duck hunting in the slough by feeding ducks – in what they admit is simply using a legal loophole and installing duck feeding stations.
It’s the start of yet another battle in the longer war, and you can’t expect the public to just shrug and walk away.
If there are conservation issues then they should be raised with wildlife folks, not used as a basis for challenging the stream access law.
You’ve offered no recognition of the stream/public access issues here at all – only offered up a “privatization as conservation” argument that doesn’t really play well with the public.
I’m fairly well informed about the legal issues, which leaves me with several questions for you:
What would you show me that would convince me that legal public access should be revoked?
Are you suggesting the only “informed” opinion here is one that agrees with you?
Why should the stream access laws be changed in this circumstance and not every other place in Montana?
Tom Chandler(Quote)
I’m not really interested in having a debate on the facts with a guy who’s never been here but considers himself an expert on the subject.
I’ll summarize my position as this: The Mitchell is not a ‘natural waterway’ any more than it is a ‘ditch’. It just doesn’t fit neatly under stream access or private ownership and anyone who says it does is talking out of bias or ignorance. If you want to know whats really at stake on the Mitchell you have to know all of the politics, personalities and alliances that got us to where we are today. There are Good Guys and Bad Guys on both sides and that’s not even taking the unintended consequences into account.
I wish I could share your black and white optimism about this ruling but unfortunately all I really see is grey. I don’t expect you to share that view from wherever it is you live but please don’t propegate any more of the easily digestable versions of this case because they get in the way of real progress that will put the resource ahead of the politics.
Greg Trangmoe(Quote)
Debate? When did you start debating?
You haven’t once addressed the stream access issue. And yes, these issues are rarely B&W – but landowners who summarily erect fences and “No Trespassing” signs on what the court says is public water – and who file lawsuits to bar public access – aren’t exactly interested in finding common ground.
I said it before (and you ignored it) that there are better ways to handle this, but what choice did those representing public access have in this case?
Really. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes – what would you have done?
Fences and signs aren’t exactly first steps in a negotiation, or a signal someone’s looking to find common ground.
If your contention is that Mitchell is private – despite the vast difference in water flows from the headgates to its return to the river – then the court says you’re wrong.
Argue with them.
If you’re suggesting that there is some other solution, then you’ve yet to put it forth.
Suggesting I’m speaking out of bias is certainly a handy way to degrade the “debate” but it’s proof of nothing, and far be it from me to suggest that you would have any bias in this matter.
Offer something besides veiled references to information the rest of us couldn’t possibly know, and maybe we’ll have a debate.
As it stands, the court’s already made a decision – the only one left to make once fences started going up and legal access was blocked.
Tom Chandler(Quote)
I didn’t start debating, I invited you to come out here and see things first hand so you can decide for yourself.
Greg Trangmoe(Quote)
And you said I was ignorant, and accused me of engaging in class warfare, and…
I’m not leaving my new daughter and traveling to Montana so you can make a case you haven’t made online. Why would I?
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Greg,
Your view and opinions make no sense. The fact of the matter is : It’s rich landowners moving in to Montana’s beautiful lands and trying to do what hard working Montana native land owners would never do. Trying to cut off access to fishing in areas where Montana residents have been fishing for years.
Now I understand this is not the correct political arguement, but these are the facts. Its nonsense to even try and suggest Fisherman are hurting the fish populations, absolute nonsense. I have personally witnessed the “argumenitive landowners” rolling through the slough on bobcats when the water is low messing up the river bed. Those are the people that are truely harming the river.
I welcome you too try and even justify these facts.
Montana Fisherman(Quote)
I don’t think anonamous web posts are the appropriate forum for having a real discussion but I’d be happy to talk at length about it if you wanted to get together sometime.
You can reach me at G R E G @ s t e v i f i r e . c o m
Greg Trangmoe(Quote)