House amends public-waters access bill, adds streams and prescriptive-easement language

Salt Lake City — The Utah House took an important step on a contested public-access bill Tuesday, adopting a sponsor amendment that adds specific streams to the list of public waters and clarifies how prescriptive easements affect public access designations.

Representative Ben Ferry, sponsor of First Substitute House Bill 187, described Amendment No. 13 as a technical and substantive fix: it adds three streams — Currant Creek, the Lake Fork River and Diamond Fork River — to the bill's list of public waters and creates a mechanism by which continuous, unauthorized public use (a prescriptive easement) can qualify a waterway for public-water designation. "If someone has used a public waterway and someone else has purchased all the property around it and denied access, the public basically has established a prescriptive right of way," Ferry said, explaining the amendment's intent to protect established recreational use.

Members questioned how the language would treat waterways temporarily opened by dam operators and whether intermittent openings amount to the "historically provided" recreational use the amendment requires. Ferry and other supporters said the prescriptive-right approach requires continuous, nonpermissive use to demonstrate an easement and that limited or periodic openings would not automatically qualify.

Representative McKiff, who said he helped draft the language, called the amendment a way to "soften the bill" for users who had access and then lost it; Ferry said he planned stakeholder meetings and would "circle" the bill in anticipation of further negotiations with affected parties.

Next steps: Amendment 13 was adopted; the bill was circled for additional stakeholder meetings and further floor consideration.