Explorer: DEC sides with paddlers on Shingle Shanty access rights
DEC officials say these signs should be removed
NCPR reported this summer on the turf war between recreational paddlers and property owners in the North Country over river-access rights.
Paddlers argue that recent court decisions mean that “navigable waterways” are roughly equivalent to public roads, even when private landowners own both banks of the stream or river.
Some landowners — though not all — say boaters are trespassing.
Now the Adirondack Explorer magazine is reporting that the state Department of Environmental Conservation is siding with paddlers in one of the most fiercely contested feuds on Shingle Shanty Brook near Tupper Lake.
Weighing in on a long-running controversy, the state Department of Environmental Conservation says the public has the right to paddle through private land on Shingle Shanty Brook and adjoining waterways that connect two pieces of state land in the Whitney Wilderness.
What’s more, DEC has ordered the landowners to remove cables and no-trespassing signs intended to deter the public from paddling the waterways.
Phil Brown, the reporter on the piece, says the DEC tried to negotiate with the landowners, but were unable tor each a deal.
Christopher Amato, DEC’s assistant commissioner for natural resources, warned [the landowners] that the department might refer the matter to the state attorney general for legal action if the cables and signs are not removed.
“The Department is unwilling to acquiesce in the Association’s continuing interference with the public’s right to navigate Mud Pond, Mud Pond Outlet, and Shingle Shanty Brook,” Amato wrote the landowners’ attorney, Dennis Phillips of Glens Falls, in early fall.
According to Brown, the landowners declined to comment on DEC’s demand.
Tags: adirondacks, environment, land use, outdoor recreation
This is an excellent decision for paddlers and property rights advocates. Now, finally we may see this get into a court of law so that the Navigability in Fact of this stream can be determined.
It is going to cost the state some money that they probably don’t have but it needs to be adjudicated.
It would have been just as easy to have charged some of the paddlers with trespass. But either way, now hopefully the owners will stick to their guns and keep the signs in place so they can be charged with illegal posting.
Wouldn’t the same apply to the Beaver River from Lake Lila to Stillwater? Both are in NYS Forest Preserve.