American Whitewater has just received a transcript of Governor Kulongoski’s June 10, 2003 statement to the Oregon State Land Board in regard to Senate Bill 293-10, which is controversial because it significantly changes the state navigability law and rights of public access to Oregon’s waterways. American Whitewater reported on this meeting earlier. Note: the choppy nature of the text is due to the nature of the transcription.
Governor Kulongoski noted (in part):
…And this is not only a contentious issue, it’s one that it seems that the political process dances around all the time. And as I told you before, having litigated the Chetco River when I was the Attorney General and been involved in studies on the McKenzie and the Willamette over the years, I know how difficult this issue is to resolve. But what I thought that Treasurer Edwards had actually been working on and instead of addressing the navigability piece of this, we would deal with the common law floatage issue which is what Montana did. I think that the comments that were made about the history when Oregon became a state (both western states) is absolutely true about the ownership of the waterways in this state. Having said that, we have a proposal now in the legislature and I just have a statement I want to read…
…I believe that the policy issue that the reason we moved to the legislation, was that we wanted to clarify the rights of the public and private landowners on waterways that have not yet been determined by the State Land Board or the courts to be navigable; and that addresses the common law floatage issue. I actually, and I’m speaking for myself, have four principles that I just want to talk to you about.
One, that any bill that comes out of here, and this is the reason why I’m concerned about the ‘opt in’ and ‘opt out.’ I think that the bill has to provide clarity and certainty. The bill needs to provide clarity and certainty for law of law to users, to the property owners and to the law enforcement personnel.
The second principle is you have to clarify the status quo. The bill should assure public rights of use to beds and banks, consistent with current common law doctrine. That is the rights to float, fish, anchor, portage and use banks up to the line of ordinary high water or reasonable and incidental uses associated with the use of the waterway.
The third principle is the moves toward reasonable – the bill must move toward reasonable, realistic and long lasting solutions to this issue. This bill should assure that if a pilot approach, which is what we have been talking – some people have been talking about, is chosen, that it test drive a solution that is reasonable, realistic and easily applied on a state-wide basis. The solution needs to be a blueprint for a long-lasting solution.
And the fourth principle is that I believe there should be no moratorium on other navigability issues that are standing in the line. The bill, if offered, as a pilot program for one river should not include a moratorium on navigability studies for the other rivers currently under consideration by the Land Board. At some time you have to move on with this. I’m willing to work with the process to get this issue resolved, but one thing I do not want is that coming out this session, we have a piece of legislation that does not meet these principles and actually extenuates the debate over a longer period of time.