When are waterways private or public?

Woody Debris Removal

– Last Updated: Apr-24-13 12:40 AM EST –

Volunteer groups are stewards of the river and
keep some smaller rivers navigable for recreation
in Michigan. They work closely with the state agencies
and are up-to-date on what constitutes trespassing.

A river is a trail - just like the ones used for
cycling, jogging, hiking and equestrian groups.
Maintenance is required and expected for navigability.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Shiawassee_Heritage_Water_Trail.jpg/800px-Shiawassee_Heritage_Water_Trail.jpg

Woody Debris Removal Manual :
http://www.rochesterhills.org/documentcenter/view/255

I’m of…
two minds when it comes to removal of blockages. If it’s on a well-used waterway, especially one that has canoe liveries, any tree soon gets cut, either by the canoe livery or by whoever is using it. If I’m on such a waterway, that’s pretty much what I expect to happen and I’m fine with it. But on a wild, little used river, I ain’t gonna cut it myself and I DON’T want anybody else to do so. That’s just part of the risk and the experience of being on a wild stream.

Ecological Considerations
I just skimmed a little bit of that last article, and I wish to read it in its entirety later. Thanks for posting that. That article recognizes the value of woody debris, something that the old ideas of “flood control” and “lets get this river flowing faster” failed to recognize, to the great detriment of many rivers. Thankfully, at least around here, government agencies involved in such things have long abandoned such ideas.



Some folks in our local paddling club made a big project of opening a path through deadfall obstacles on a creek near here, and they got approval from the DNR to do so, but with the stipulation that removal of material be kept to a minimum. “Clearing” the creek, even at particular locations, would not have been permitted. An earlier post here about government agencies being interested in maintaining clear flow makes me think some backward states are clinging to ancient ideas about “improving” the natural condition of things. Thank goodness that’s becoming less and less common.



On that topic, I heard a talk at Canoecopia addressing this very thing, but in regard to developed lake shores. It’s been found that even the small amounts of brush laying in the water along a lake shore (the amount of brush is infinitely small relative to the volume of water when compared to most rivers) is critical habitat for lots of life, things on which everything else ultimately depends. When every landowner removes that little bit of brush from the water in front of their house, just to make it look nice, the negative consequences are pretty severe.

Absolutely true
Though during the years when I was working at a farm down the road from me we did pretty much “clear” a section of the creek that flowed through after having found that if we didn’t during times of flood a good deal of water would be diverted from the creek course through our fields. And it did damage. There was current when the creek was obstructed, standing water only when it wasn’t. But that was just in one section where we had problems, we left the rest pretty much be.



I’d never suggest clearing a stream of all woody debris - but cutting a path - three or four feet wide and something that a paddler might have to duck to get under seems like a “good deed” done for all involved, paddlers, land owners, the DNR (since they don’t have to listen to complaints about something they would never do anything about, at least in this state, anyway).

There is a safety aspect, though admittedly usually pretty minor, to this also. It isn’t always perfectly safe clambering up a muddy undercut bank, hauling a boat, upstream of a strainer. Often that’s the only way around, and it could contribute to erosion if enough people follow the same route around or if its in unstable condition due to the weather. Beating a path through what’s often deep, soft mud on the inside of a bend isn’t without consequences either.



The fellow who brought this to my attention (while I was manning a booth at Canoecopia for a volunteer river protection group) was speaking of a part of a creek just outside of our county that another local volunteer group was working to clean up. They encountered an obstinate landowner who claimed that if he let them cut a path through the downed trees his property would be over run with drunken canoeists and he would have to clean up after them. (Not likely…) He flatly refused to let them cut a path through the downed trees on his land and his stated reason is that he wants to discourage folks from paddling the stream. He continues to do so. Alas, having seen what some, especially the rental paddlers, often do out on the river proper, I can see where those fears might come from.



Of course for most of my life, I’ve just portaged around such things, quickly, quietly, almost covertly. Or if I felt in a generous mood toward future paddlers or thought I might be back often myself, I’d cut a path quickly, quietly, and almost covertly.

I feel no guilt about it either way. And I totally agree with reefmonkey, it is no big deal either way, as I see it.

But until I met this fellow it never occurred to me that there was ever anything potentially criminal about clearing a small opening for a canoe while on the water. It was just something one did to get rid of an annoyance, like swatting mosquitoes or removing a stone from one’s boot. Who questions who’s stone that is in your boot or if those mosquitoes are “live stock” and the property of the owner of the land they fly over? (Perhaps raised on site to discourage drunken paddlers?)



So I mentioned it here because it seems related to the topic of “who owns the river; is it public or private”.

that’s wise advice
Add to that, that some watershed organizations prefer that deadfall be left in place for habitat. I know a river where they’d hang you for clearing it!

Garbage collection

– Last Updated: Apr-24-13 2:54 PM EST –

Those woody debris strainer messes make wonderful
garbage collectors for all those styrofoam worm cups
and lids the fishermen seem to "loose" along with their
plastic water bottles, bobbers, and beer cans.

Nothing like decorating a natural debris pile with garbage
for that outdoor experience while paddling.

Everyone lives downstream from somebody else.
Some clean it up, others are apathetic and turn a blind eye

Fishing license fees don't exactly fund clean-up efforts
-at least not in Michigan, because the state does ZERO

http://picasaweb.google.com/108590711667865641354/KayakingShiawasseeRiverArgentineToCorruna#


This work was done by 501-3c NonProfits
to open the river via "slots" for navigability.

Maybe other states are different

I’m not sure I agree
Maybe that’s true in the southeastern part of the state, where game fishing isn’t as popular. I know that TU does plenty of work on trout streams in the northern LP and UP. And fishing pays the bills up north.



Many cleanups and stewardship programs are coordinated by watershed groups who aren’t necessarily interest-specific toward paddling or canoeing.



I would agree, however, that the State doesn’t give paddlers much consideration compared to the fishing community. But fishing is a huge tourism draw for the state.

Blue Infrastructure

– Last Updated: Apr-24-13 5:47 PM EST –

Paddlers buy gas, supplies,along with
breakfasts, lunches, and dinners;
in the communities
where they go for those day trips.

When gas hits $4.50 - $5.00 a gallon you'll see
more powerboat folks switching over to low cost canoe/kayak rec.

Michigan legislature better wake up and see the wave

It’s a stretch that happens quite a lot

– Last Updated: Apr-24-13 6:10 PM EST –

where I live, where it is flat and low and we get a lot of rainfall and are floodprone. Most of our creeks and bayous are channelized. I have done a lot of stormwater planning and permitting for industrial facilities, and have worked with the flood control district extensively. They do routine maintenance, including vegetation removal, and usually catch a downed tree when they are in the area, but they also encourage private citizens to inform them of downed trees or other damage to channels through their citizen service center.

From their website:

"Does the District remove debris from channels? From property?
Debris Removal operations remove dead trees and other impediments to conveyance from district channels. A number of channel locations have been identified as areas where debris collects regularly; these locations are on cyclical schedule for debris removal approximately once every eight weeks. The District also has programs to collect floatable debris (such as Styrofoam cups) from several waterways in Harris County. The District is not allowed to remove debris or trees from private property."

...

"Please help to ensure that the District knows about damage to any particular channel. The District would appreciate it if you would let us know about the problem, so appropriate action can be taken to repair it. Please contact the Citizen Service Center."


It's not about some states being "backward" or "old-fashioned", it is about balancing human uses and needs with ecological considerations, and since the topography, hydrology, and ecology vary greatly across this country, the way other states manage drainage basins may differ from the way your state manages its (or you believe it manages its) but that doesn't mean they are wrong.

That makes sense

– Last Updated: Apr-24-13 7:00 PM EST –

I get it. Basically, your natural channels have mostly been replaced by ditches. Naturally they need to be prevented from returning to their natural state if they are to function as originally intended. I suppose if you don't have much higher ground available in the area, continued development in such places can't be avoided. Here, it's the other way around, and it's very difficult to get government approval to build in lowlands like that, and channelization of natural rivers and creeks is no longer done. It wasn't always like that of course, and I view the current level of protection afforded to such places as progress, hence my comment to the effect that the continuation of destructive practices like that seems old-fashioned by comparison.

As far as what I "believe" to be my state's policy toward removing deadfall, never in my life have I heard of them doing anything of the kind. Local highway departments will, on very rare occasions, find it necessary to remove logjams from the upstream side of bridge pilings, but that's not a reflection of river management. Rivers that are small enough to be blocked by downed trees simply aren't "managed" to maximize or otherwise alter rates of flow. For that matter, other than what the Army Corps of Engineers does on the Mississippi and commercially-used parts of the Fox, it's not done on larger rivers either. I understand that there WAS some occasional dredging of the upper reaches of the Fox River because it's connected to an ancient barge canal, though neither that part of the river nor the canal have been used since the arrival of the railroads more than 100 years ago. That dredging was the result of some sort of mindless federal game, where deciding whether or not the channel needed to be maintained simply hadn't been assessed during the whole time the system remained unused, so it was done on principle. That's the way it was explained to me by someone who keeps track of such things, but I was also told that they eventually "figured out" that the work was unnecessary and it hasn't been done in a very long time.

Again a gross oversimplification
I wouldn’t call buffalo bayou, sims bayou, white oak bayou, armand bayou, greens bayou, cypress creek etc “ditches.” Many different management strategies have been used over the years.

Fair enough

– Last Updated: Apr-24-13 9:55 PM EST –

It's too difficult to ascertain all pertinent details in such brief posts. I figured that any "channelized" (therefore, presumably dredged and straightened) stream that's so narrow as to become blocked by fallen trees can't be much more than a ditch. Sorry about that. In any case, presuming that there's most likely some government agency doing similar things on "ordinary rivers" didn't make any sense to me, and I still wouldn't make that extrapolation based on such a unique situation. Clearly this is a very unusual place, as far as man-made changes/management goes. As another example of what I'm thinking, any river I've ever seen where blockages can develop would be completely inaccessible to any kind of heavy equipment, except at bridges and a few scattered locations where a road might not be too far away. Making the river accessible to such action would require a tremendous amount of road-building. Certainly no machinery could possibly be floated in on an "ordinary river" of such size that fallen trees might be of concern to anybody, but I suspect that's no problem on a channel that's been dredged, straightened, and is maintained in such a condition.

No, what happened is you chose

– Last Updated: Apr-25-13 3:48 AM EST –

Disparagement over admitting you were wrong about whether or not a public entity might do tree removal on public waterways. No need to complicate it any more than that.

I WAS confused

– Last Updated: Apr-25-13 9:24 AM EST –

I guess it's time to drop it, but I honestly didn't get how the management of rivers that are both channelized and very large (as you now imply) is relevant to a discussion of rivers that are so tiny that the legality of carrying your boat around complete blockages caused by fallen trees is cause for concern. It seems you were comparing apples to oranges and I didn't expect such a comparison from you. I also wouldn't have expected you to make a comparison between such heavily managed rivers within such thoroughly industrialized/urbanized areas to the kinds that occur elsewhere, nor the accompanying statement that reporting fallen trees to some government authority is only natural. I "get it" that this is normal where you live, and yes it seemed backward to me when I had the topic of small, natural rivers in my mind, but I'm not "wrong" to mention that 99 percent of us don't see any such "management" on our rivers.

By the way, I used to read your contributions to some of the debates on B & B, and I always thought you showed really good sense in presenting your ideas, so yes, this whole idea that one should actually expect government help regarding fallen trees really was a "stretch" in my mind, because it wouldn't happen in any place I've ever been or heard about.

Again you are relying on assumptions
I did not imply that these were “large rivers”, just that they were not little ditches. There is quite a lot of room for streams of many different sizes within those two extremes.



Take Buffalo Bayou, the most important stream in my area, which runs for about 50 miles, starting in rural Fort Bend County to just southeast of downtown Houston where it becomes the Houston Ship Channel and then empties into Galveston Bay. From its headwaters to the western edge of the Houston city limits, it is managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. From there to downtown, it is managed by the Harris County Flood Control District with USACE cooperation, and once it becomes the Houston Ship Channel, it is managed by the Port of Houston Authority.



From its headwaters to downtown Houston, much recreational activity takes place on the bayou. It is too narrow and shallow for motorboats, but many private kayakers and canoers, as well as canoe livery services, travel on it. Its width in this area is about 150 feet. From the headwaters to the USACE flood control gates, the surrounding land is rural for the most part, though exurban growth is changing that. From the gates eastward for about 12 miles, the bayou is bordered on both sides by public parkland, and from the end of that segment for another 13 miles it passes through private property, mostly upscale private houses with dense forest. Then it passes through a city park before opening up to a mix of smaller city parks and a more urban landscape around it just west of Downtown. So much of its course west of downtown Houston it is really just a large creek passing through attractive forested land, making it a very pleasant and well-used recreational waterway, that is also managed for flood control. This is not an apples to oranges comparison at all.



Two issues:



First: You said “I honestly can’t imagine a scenario where anyone in any branch of public service would care or even have such a responsibility.” Well, I provided you a scenario. Not an apples to oranges scenario, but a scenario of a stream attractive enough to be used for recreation, small enough that logjams could present a flood issue, and managed by a government agency that does remove trees when they fall in it.





Second: You said “I don’t see flooding as an issue at all, since the biggest, densest, nastiest log jams I’ve seen don’t raise the river enough to notice (in fact, as soon as a tree falls and obstructs flow, the river simply scours a hole underneath it), but in any case, the very idea of “improving flow” has, for decades now, been seen as old-fashioned and counter-productive on any river small enough for logjams to be a consideration.” The US Army Corps of Engineers and Harris County Flood Control District seem to disagree with you, at least in this instance, and I am not inclined to debate the wisdom of their management plan with you, my only point was that the thing you said you “can’t imagine” occuring, occurs. How often it occurs is up for debate, but I doubt that buffalo bayou and the other streams of Harris County are so exceptional as to be singular. PJC did not mention a particular body of water he was talking about, he seemed to be merely talking about the issue in general, so I merely mentioned this as a possible course of action. Since 81% of the US population lives in urban areas and it is likely that a water body an urban dweller uses regularly (and I did suggest this course of action only for a water body he uses regularly) is going to be fairly close to that urban area, it’s not that much of a stretch that such a body of water might be used recreationally as well as managed for flood control.

my opinion:
Whether one agrees with it or not, fishing is a revenus activity in the state of michigan. Fishing provides much more revenue than paddling.



State regulatory agencies regulate with this in mind. Building fishing and fish habitat structures is seen much differently than building whitewater features, for example. If you do not believe me, keep an eye on the City of Ann Arbor and the battle they will face to create whitewater features in an urban section of the Huron River.



I’m not saying I agree with any of this, but I am saying it’s reality.



One can swim upstream and force adversarial relationships between user groups, roll the dice as the underdog, and see what happens. Or, one can form cooperative stewardships with different user groups, accept a certain amount of compromise, and work toward the goals of each group. guess which option will be the most successful in realizing the underdog’s goals?


I’d debate USACE mgm’t plans!

– Last Updated: Apr-25-13 11:58 AM EST –

I can give you numerous examples of where and how those management plans have failed all or parts of a community. The USACE is in large part responsible for why the upper great lakes are low presently. I'm particularly skeptical when it comes to the USACE. The USACE is like a DOT in that they have a limited scope and concerns.

In my state where streams and rivers have significant gradient, I have to side with gbg - deadfall presents little if any flood danger. On the other hand, watershed organizations across my state who help manage streams from a habitat standpoint - blue ribbon trout streams, for example - advocate leaving deadfall in place. They get support from state agencies. If flooding is an issue, state agencies obviously take that into consideration.

I'd also reference my conversation with Willi that paddlers in my state face a tough uphill battle if they think their use should get equal or greater consideration than habitat issues relating to fishing. Better to work toward compromise and common goals and apply them where appropriate.

Probably where we all agree is that the approach to woody debris removal is context dependent.

Anyway, this is a really good thread because it makes us think about these issues from many perspectives and contexts (plus, I think Glen's post and research re: the history of navigable waters is pretty interesting).

That’s fair enough
I wasn’t really dealing with whether or not cremoving a felled tree or even any of these agency management practices are appropriate, just that at least in some places they do exist and PJC could attempt to avail himself of them if he so desired.

I paddle all the places PJC does …
… and no, there is no government agency here that can, or wants to, remove fallen trees. In fact, the agency most closely in charge of such things will instruct you to leave them be, as much as possible.

The thing…
that anglers complain about is that they pay a more for their recreation than paddlers who don’t fish pay. There are excise taxes on fishing equipment that raise the cost of it by something like 10%. There are fishing licenses to buy. That money goes to the state fish and game departments, and in many states the fish and game departments buy up the land and maintain public accesses with it that non-fishing paddlers happily use without paying anything for it.



As a paddling angler, I think it’s absolutely stupid to have adversarial relationships between paddlers and anglers.