Colorado River Law Documents:

1. What You Can Do about River Access in Colorado.  (A short online article, with a link to a one-page PDF, ready to print and hand out to paddlers, fishermen, landowners, and officials.)

2. Legal Citations about River Law in Colorado. (A somewhat longer article, with legal citations and explanations.)

3. Facts and Law about River Access in Colorado. (A longer article with more background information, with links to 4-page PDF versions, ready to print and hand out, on either standard-size paper or ledger-size paper.)

4. Public Rights on Rivers in Colorado. (A free ebook of about 50 pages, with many illustrations and legal citations, ready to view online now, or print out as a hard-copy reference book.)

   Coming soon:

   • A map of the rivers and creeks in Colorado that are navigable in fact and therefore navigable in law, according to the U.S. Constitution and the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. This map will reconfirm the navigable rivers and creeks of Colorado, from the upstream area where they first become navigable in kayaks and similar paddlecraft, to the downstream place where they flow into another river or lake, or flow out of the state. This map will clarify, to landowners and officials, which private land along rivers has a navigational servitude on it, that includes a public easement to walk along the river on the private land, in the course of paddling, fishing, and related recreational activities.

   • An Open Letter to Governor Polis and Attorney General Weiser, reminding them that the state’s current “without touching” policy seriously interferes with paddling and fishing rights on rivers, and therefore seriously conflicts with the U.S. Constitution and the relevant decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, and asking their administration to clarify that the public easement already applies on the rivers in Colorado that are navigable in kayaks and similar paddlecraft, and that new no state legislation is necessary to reconfirm this public easement, because the U.S. Supreme Court has already confirmed it repeatedly, for all states including Colorado.

   • A comparison to Governor Wallace blocking the schoolhouse door in Alabama, compared with Colorado state officials blocking river access and use to paddlers and fishermen in today’s world, by means of their present unlawful “without touching” policy. This article will discuss the similarities and differences between these two unlawful state policies — segregation in southern states until the 1970s, and river access restrictions in Georgia, Kansas, Colorado, and a few other states, especially since the 1970s.

   • Draft law enforcement guidance for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. This will provide draft wording for the Attorney General’s Office (the Colorado Department of Law) that would bring Colorado state policy into compliance with the U.S. Constitution, the relevant U.S. Supreme Court decisions, and the relevant Acts of Congress including the Rivers and Harbors Acts and the Submerged Lands Act.

   • Draft legislation for the Colorado General Assembly. If the Attorney General’s Office does not issue new law enforcement guidance as mentioned above, this will provide draft wording for the state legislature to utilize to reconfirm the public easement, as required by the relevant U.S. Supreme Court decisions and Acts of Congress.

   • Frequently asked questions and counter-arguments. Why public or private land ownership of riverbeds or banks is not the deciding issue for paddling and fishing rights, because there’s a public easement “regardless of who owns the riverbed” as the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed. ▉ Why this public easement along rivers is not a taking, and landowners are not entitled to just compensation when state governments reconfirm this public easement to walk along rivers flowing through private land. ▉ Why navigable rivers include not just large rivers, usable by motorized boats and barges, but also include small rivers and creeks that are barely navigable in canoes and kayaks. ▉ Why numerous lawyers say that this public easement is a state by state matter, rather than being a matter of U.S. Supreme Court decisions and Acts of Congress that apply nationwide. (This is mainly because law is a business, not a peer-reviewed science, so some lawyers can get paid for decades, by landowners and state governments, to keep saying that this is a state by state matter, even though the U.S. Supreme Court keeps saying that it is not.) ▉ And answers to other common questions and counter-arguments. ▉