The Legislature has decided that its 2017 Special Session resolution of the nonmeandered waters issue is good enough for the foreseeable future. Of the eight bills filed on the contentious topic of public access to new lakes on recently and perennially flooded private land, the Legislature passed just two:
- House Bill 1081 repeals the sunset clause on last June’s nonmeandered waters act. The bill originally sought a mere three-year extension.
- House Bill 1140 intervenes in a water-access issue that has arisen in Day County, home of many nonmeandered waters. Townships there have tried to circumvent the new state law opening perennially flooded lands to public use by vacating roads leading to those waters. HB 1140 mostly puts the kabosh on that practice, prohibiting townships and counties from vacating roads leading to “public waters embracing an area of not less than forty acres.” Remember that forty acres is a sixteenth of a square mile, a square a quarter-mile on each side, or a circle just under 500 yards across. Given that nonmeandered lakes don’t have a meander line—i.e., the official survey line—defining which nonmeandered waters are less than forty acres and thus subject to local road vacation could take some eyeballing and some jawboning.
None of the other six measures touching on nonmeandered waters passed. Senator Jason Frerichs (D-1/Wilmot) proposed Senate Bill 211 to create a Legislative Water Management Committee to discuss nonmeandered water access, grassy buffer strips, and other water issues, but after a shaky committee hearing, the Senate declined to even debate that proposal.