Last week I wrote about the water wars in California’s Eastern Sierra. That fight pitted the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power against rural Mono and Inyo counties, which lost their Owens River to what would become the largest city on the West Coast.
Los Angeles couldn’t have happened without imported water.
It’s a California story, but one not unlike the fights that have sprung up across the West since the late 1800s. There are plenty of tales just like it in Montana — timber wars or grazing disputes or irrigation altercations. The first murder in Montana, after all, arose from a disagreement about water in the Burnt Fork of the Bitterroot River.
The fight for access on Mitchell Slough, a branch of the Bitterroot River, didn’t result in homicide, but at times it seemed only just barely.
There’s at least one book written about Mitchell Slough — I reviewed it last year — as well as lots of coverage in Montana’s news media, so there’s no need for a detailed rehash of what happened. The short version will suffice.
Essentially, a group of landowners along the Slough posted the waterway with “No Trespassing” signs and dared anyone to stop them, even though the Slough was a branch of the Bitterroot River and Montana’s Stream Access Law unequivocally protects the public’s right to access rivers between the high-water marks to fish.
The tactic worked for more than a decade. Then, in 2008, the Montana Supreme Court ruled otherwise. In a decision that was as unambiguous as any I’ve read, the court ruled Mitchell Slough was the river, was covered by the Stream Access Law and that anglers had a right to fish there.
Eventually, the signs came down.
It’s worth noting that the Slough landowners have done a fine job restoring the waterway. The Slough is a more productive fishery because of landowner efforts. Restored, it may even boost trout numbers in the main stem of the Bitterroot. The landowners deserve credit for this work, implemented on their own dime.
But none of that had any bearing on the Stream Access Law.
The access fight at Mitchell Slough was about more than just limiting public access on Montana rivers. Mitchell Slough was a paradigm shift, the pivot point in the BC-AD timeline that separates Montana’s extraction era from the postmodern access era.
Before Mitchell Slough, we fought about who claimed dominion over natural resources, dominion to extract these precious commodities for some material use. Since Mitchell Slough, these same natural resources remaining in situ are the precious commodity while the battle lines have shifted to controlling access.
We accomplished much in the last century, including one of the greatest acts of ecological recovery in human history when we restored the wildlife of North America. Our restoration approach was so danged effective it’s named the North America Model, after the place it was perfected.
But increasingly in the access era, we’re asking different questions about wildlife.
If a bull elk bugles in a forest only the wealthy may enter, does it make a sound? And what of a trout splashing in a stream or the inspired pheasant crowing at dawn’s break?
Restoration of sacred places has meaning, value for its own sake.
Reserving those places only for those who can afford the entry fee is an assault on the ideal that all are created equal.
Unfortunately, despite the Montana Supreme Court’s decision there’s been no shortage of fresh “Keep Out!” signs across Montana and the West.
Next week: Why public access enrages the new oligarchs.