{"id":127,"date":"2022-09-02T00:54:22","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T00:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/?p=127"},"modified":"2022-09-02T00:54:22","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T00:54:22","slug":"new-mexico-supreme-court-issues-formal-opinion-on-stream-access","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americangunpeople.com\/?p=127","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico Supreme Court Issues Formal Opinion on Stream Access"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Today the New Mexico Supreme Court published its written opinion<\/a> on a lawsuit regarding stream access in the state. It represents a decisive win for anglers and public access advocates in New Mexico, and it brings some clarity to a complex issue that has sparked similar legal battles in other Western states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a good day for fishermen,\u201d says Ben Neary, the conservation director for the New Mexico Wildlife Federation<\/a>, one of three petitioners in the lawsuit that was originally filed against the State Game Commission in 2020.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s long-awaited opinion further clarifies its March 1 oral decision<\/a>, which overturned a State Game Commission rule that allowed private landowners to exclude the public from streams flowing through their property. This unanimous decision, as many anglers interpreted it, effectively re-established the public\u2019s constitutional right to wade and fish in these streams.<\/p>\n

As we reported<\/a> last month, however, private landowners and their supporters have argued in the time since that until the court released a written opinion, they maintained their view that wading and fishing in streams flowing through private property amounted to trespassing. We also learned first-hand that anglers lawfully fishing those streams were in a sort of legal limbo wherein they could still face intimidation and threats with little recourse.<\/p>\n

Read Next: \u201cI\u2019d Have to Bury You Out Here.\u201d The New Mexico Stream Access Battle Is Far From Over<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The court\u2019s issuance of a formal opinion on Sept. 1 officially closes the chapter on this period of uncertainty.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hold that the public has the right to recreate and fish in public waters,\u201d the court wrote, \u201cand that this right includes the privilege to do such acts as are reasonably necessary to effect the enjoyment of such right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The justices backed up their opinion with a 1945 state Supreme Court case that was\u2014until now\u2014the only case in state history that dealt directly with the stream access issue. They also cited the New Mexico State Constitution, which says that all streams and water bodies in New Mexico are public waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cArticle XVI, Section 2 [of the state constitution] conveys to the public the right to recreate and fish in public water. The question here is whether the right to recreate and fish in public water also allows the public the right to touch the privately owned beds below those waters,\u201d the court stated in its formal opinion. \u201cWe conclude that it does.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court explained that the public\u2019s right to fish and recreate in New Mexico streams has always superseded a private landowner\u2019s right to exclude the public from privately owned streambeds. The justices stressed that as long as the public does not trespass on privately owned lands to access public water, they have every right to walk and wade in these streambeds in order to fish.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re pleased with the formal opinion from the court, and we\u2019re not surprised,\u201d Neary says. \u201cIt\u2019s a pretty clear endorsement of what they said back in March, and a repetition of what the supreme court said in its 1945 Red River<\/em> decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neary also made the important point that the state Supreme Court\u2019s decision does not give the public any new rights, but instead restores a right that was taken away from the public generations ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s ruling makes it very plain that the public has a right to recreate and fish in these waters. But this is nothing new,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re reclaiming something that we should have had all along. We\u2019re just taking back what\u2019s always been ours.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n