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Last modified
8/16/2009 2:57:37 PM
Creation date
10/4/2006 6:49:20 AM
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Board Meetings
Board Meeting Date
7/24/2000
Description
Gunnison Basin Issues - Right-to-Float
Board Meetings - Doc Type
Memo
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<br />Page 4 <br /> <br />inherent in the ownership of property, These landowners therefore believe that the Woodard <br />Opinion creates a misleading impression and needs to be supplemented to declare that there <br />is no "right to float" in Colorado, <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br />(c) Criminal obstruction. <br /> <br />Certain landowners assert that the right to exclude floaters as civil trespassers is <br />inherent in their ownership of property, and carries with it the right to physically block <br />floaters' access by means of fences, dams, boulder placement, and the like in and across <br />streams flowing across the landowners' property. In connection with this argument, Wyatt <br />Angelo, the District ,;\ttorney of the Seventh Judicial District, has asked for an opinion from <br />the Attorney General: <br /> <br />, . ,whether the provisions of[the criminal obstruction statute] Section 18-9-107 <br />C.R.S, prohibit a landowner from erecting obstacles. . .across those waterways <br />which are now floated by boaters without criminal [trespass] liability, , . .[I]s a <br />landowner legally "privileged" to construct such an obstacle based upon his <br />ownership of the riverbed or adjacent banks? <br /> <br />In other words, District Attorney Angelo seeks an interpretation from this office as to <br />whether he should prosecute any landowner who deliberately places a barrier across a <br />floatable stream in order to block floaters. <br /> <br />The criminal obstruction statute, CRS S 18-9-107, provides in relevant part as <br />follows: <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />(I) An individual or corporation commits an offense if without legal <br />privilege such individual or corporation intentionally, knowingly, or <br />recklessly: <br /> <br />(a) Obstructs a. , . waterway, , . to which the public or a substantial group <br />of the public has access, , , , <br /> <br />(2) For purposes of this section, "obstruct" means to render impassable or <br />to render passage unreasonably inconvenient or hazardous. <br /> <br />Certain landowners' representatives assert that as a right inherent in their ownership <br />of property, landowners do indeed have a "legal privilege" to exclude floaters by obstructing <br />the river, and that floaters do not constitute "the public" for purposes of the criminal <br />obstruction statute since they do not have legal access to water flowing across private lands. <br />Apparently, no Colorado court has interpreted S 18-9-1075 to determine whether a landowner <br />has such a "legal privilege" to obstruct passage of a floatable river across the landowner's <br /> <br />5 Surprisingly, the Woodard Opinion did not address the applicability of S 18-9-107 to the <br />question of obstructing floatable streams flowing across private property despite considering . <br />
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