Posted on 01/20/2015 8:59:58 PM PST by Theoria
The Adirondack Park in upstate New York, with its 3,000 lakes and ponds and 30,000 miles of rivers and streams, is nothing short of nirvana for paddlers.
But often, rivers that start out on state forest land eventually flow onto private property, given that the six-million-acre park is a patchwork quilt of private and public land. A result is no-trespassing signs that force paddlers to turn around or make frustrating portages — detours on dry land with their canoes or kayaks overhead.
Late last week, a state appellate court ruled in favor of a journalist who set out in 2009 to challenge the claims of private-property owners who have argued that waterways on their lands are off limits to the public.
The journalist, Phil Brown, editor of the newsmagazine Adirondack Explorer, made a two-day canoe trip from Little Tupper Lake to Lake Lila.
Between those two points, the water route bisected a remote 2,000-acre parcel of land, laced with ponds and streams and owned by one extended family since 1851.
The route is also posted with no-trespassing signs. An arduous detour was available in the form of a fourth-fifths of a mile portage across state land, allowing Mr. Brown to avoid the private estate.
But he paddled on for two miles through the private property in the town of Long Lake, spying a deer, a nesting goose and moose scat. He had to carry his canoe for only four minutes to bypass a small rapids.
“Except for the carry, all of the waterways — the pond, the outlet and the brook — were obviously navigable in the everyday sense of the word,” Mr. Brown wrote in 2009. “Indeed, they epitomize what I like best about Adirondack canoeing: closeness to nature, ever-changing scenery, remoteness from roads.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Cheers to him and the court! Waterways are public and it is absurd that property owners get to lock out public. This really is great news and does not infringe upon the private owners, they dry property is still theirs. This is not different that people claiming to own an ocean beach to lock out people walking along the coast.
I moved several years ago to the north side of Adirondacks and was quickly disappointed and happily moved because it is almost all locked off, fenced, and you cannot access and use what is otherwise public property. No different than here in Nevada, which happily is mostly public land, yet some private owners try to block off public access to it so they have private use of the public land. Shame on them.
Good for the courts to take a step to reverse this private grab of public lands.
Of possible interest ping...
APA has been chipping away at private property owners in the Adirondacks since its inception! I am from one of those extended families, and watched as land was seized illegally by the state to extend this "Forever Wild" Bullsh!t so some Bronx Indian could drive through the mountains and Oh! and Ah! at the "unspoiled beauty".
I cry for the area of my birth, and need to go vomit that the rape of government on property owners in the mountains continues!
Cue banjo music.
You want peace? Go there. In three days you have it.
No need to trespass. Plenty of public places to go to.
Set aside any potential environmental issues for a second, if that river were to flow thru my farm land then you would have no problem with me building a dam and using the backwater to irrigate my crops?
Nah, natural beaches and navigable waterways should always be accessible to the public.
Then if your rich enough, you can always bribe the state official who determines if its a natural beach or navigable waterway.
Canoes are obsolete....... kayaks are the thing for us modern day paddlers
Yes, I miss my summers up there. Most gorgeous place I’ve been. Verdant old growth forest with crystal clear streams that you can see 6’ through and right to the bottom.
I guess you do not portage much or interior camp.
Figures. Kayaking and paddling are a couple of things that are on the “Stuff White People Like” list (i.e. liberal white people), and therefore, the “rights” of the paddlers and kayakers will overrule the actual rights of the property owners.
We had a similar situation, though on a smaller scale, a few years ago in here in Chapel Hill. There was a field near a main road that goes through town that the SWPL crowd used to walk their dogs in. Problem was, the field was private property, and the owner eventually put up a fence and some No Trespassing signs. Of course, the Chapel Hill SWPL contingent was greatly incensed, and took the guy before the town council, who basically ruled that he had to let the dog walkers use his property for walking their dogs, basically defecating all over it and trampling and destroying the grass. Not sure whatever happened with it after that, except that the SWPL people still walk their dogs there.
No need to do that. Just sow a few rocks across the river, the next kayaker comes down gets a hole in his boat, or has to do portage around it anywise. Eventually, they'll figure out that the stretch is a bad one and avoid it.
The river flows, like the Sun shines and air goes up your nose.
Where I grew up, those who still held on to fragments of land grants passed down through the family still held riparian rights as well. The State of Maryland seized those in the 60s without compensation, even though those rights antedated the formation of ANY of the current governments or agencies exerting authority. Then it was ruled that the property owner (in a tidewater region) only owned down to the mean high water mark, and that anyone who wanted to could pull a boat up in front of your house, party and raise hell on the beach in front of your house, and when they left, they left everything from smoldering fire pits to broken bottles, condoms, etc. laying in what amounts to your front yard.
We have plenty of public land we all pay for. People who have waterfront property pay more for that in property taxes than those with frontage on paved roads, even though it didn't cost the government a dime to put the river in.
They also privately deal with the expenses of maintaining that property.
In this case I definitely side with the property owner.
If the public wants to have more public places, buy and develop those at public expense, rather than impose itself on private property.
He contends that the state did not lawfully decommission or demap these roads leaving them open to motor vehicles. His interest isn't so much in access for trucks as snowmobiles, which are forbidden on these "trails" through "wilderness" areas.
It's interesting as these roads were in use for over a hundred years, well into the age of the automobile. Apparently, they are all over the Adirondacks, and he's researched their history and can't find any record or their being lawfully closed.
New York State has thousands of miles of navigable waterways. You can paddle from New York City to the Great Lakes and beyond. That’s not enough?
What about people who have livestock on their land and don’t want them wandering downstream?
Care to share the meaning for those of us not likewise informed?
Yep - just ignore them dang laws that disagree with what you want to do! (Sounds like Barack)
Hey - even though you worked hard to get your private piece of land and I didn’t - I want what you have! Gimmedat!
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