Closing a public stream from public just won’t cut it

When the call came in that a developer was keeping the public from fishing on the banks of a public creek, it seemed laughable. Then, of course, it turned out to be true.

Over the course of some discussions, the developer admitted he didn’t own the water that meanders through his subdivision, but he did own the land over which the water passed. By his reasoning, people could float on the water and fish, but under no circumstance were they to fish from the banks of Byers Creek, because he owns the land and only those he permits, can fish from the banks.

Taking it to extreme, the developer actually built a gate that closed off access to a public road so nobody could enter his subdivision from the Parks Highway to the creek. That’s problem enough, but the public road he barricaded can take people from the highway to Denali State Park, which surrounds the property in question. How the state or the borough allowed a private subdivision to be built in a state park is another story.

The rancor in this episode got ugly when the developer told one of the lot owners in the subdivision — a lodge — that his clients were not to fish from the banks. The result was another guide — a pal of the developer — actually ran people out if they dared sink a line from the banks. The lodge owner said that behavior virtually ruined his business. Without treating his clients to fishing, he said his place is just another lodge in the woods.

Government folks say land ownership along creeks and rivers ends at the high-water mark, generally that region along the bank where the vegetation stops.

Nobody, in Alaska anyway, owns the stream bed. There are places in the Lower 48 where land ownership can carry with it water rights, and in the East Coast there are beach properties that extend to the ocean where the public is denied access.

It doesn’t work that way here, and no hard-head should be able to bully the public into thinking it does.

If the developer doesn’t want the public driving through or parking near his property, then he should reimburse the borough for the cost of the road, and then the borough should go in there and make it impassible to vehicle traffic as it was before. Then we can see how many lots he sells to people who can’t get to them.