Under what Game Fish and Parks calls the “Open Waters Compromise,” landowners have closed nine nonmeandered lakes to public access. GF&P appears to think the loss of access to water that belongs to everybody is a good thing:
The South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Commission learned Thursday that state officials spent $1,700 on 200 signs to mark waters off-limits to the public.
The purchase was part of state’s response to a new law regulating use of nonmeandered waters that belong to the public but sit above private land. The Legislature approved the law during a June special session.
Kevin Robling, GF&P special projects coordinator, updated the commission regarding the law. “So far everything has been moving in a very positive direction,” he said [Bob Mercer, “GF&P: Nonmeandered Water Law ‘Moving in Positive Direction’,” Rapid City Journal, 2017.12.14].
Hmm… the only world in which fewer places to fish is a positive development is one in which we serve special interests who want to privatize outdoor recreation.
Our timid Legislature called a Special Session last June just to craft a one-year stopgap bill. They thus will spend the upcoming Session grappling with this issue further. The bold solution coming from the Governor’s office, according to what GF&P boss Kelly Hepler told the commission yesterday, will be to extend the stopgap law to 2021.
Oh yes. losing public access to public waters, and pubic fish, and public recreation, and losing fishing license fees is a good thing — only in regressive South Dakota. One can bet that all of the landowners abutting those meandered lakes delightfully collect their federal tax dollar – provided federal farm payments. Hypocrites.
I can really see how closing the best walleye lake in the state, a lake that the game fish and parks stocked none-the-less. Could be a good thing. Our legislature should be ashamed of themselves. The dury’s probably paid them off. What an atrocity. Next time you go through day county just keeep on going. Get your supplies in summit or Aberdeen. Specifically Bristol. They started the whole lawsuitt