Missouri House Bill 556 produces confusion about property ownership along rivers and streams

A House bill that seeks to clarify property ownership along Missouri rivers and streams is raising concerns among paddlers and others who use the waterways for recreation.

The Springfield News-Herald [MO] ran a story on this: http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2017/04/11/advocates-worry-proposal-pits-paddlers-against-property-owners-missouri-waterways/100324062/

Here’s a link to HB 556: http://www.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills171/hlrbillspdf/1275H.01I.pdf

The last line in the bill indicates that the Federal govt cannot designate any MO waterway as “navigable” … what’s that mean for the Federally designated Ozark Scenic Rivers?

Thankfully, this bill appears to be DOA … the Rep sponsoring the bill was the only one to testify in its favor:
http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/politics/2017/04/12/missouri-waterways-bill-perplexes-many-house-hearing/100344788/

And I got the name of the paper wrong yesterday, it’s the Springfield News-Leader, not the News-Herald.

Read the bill yesterday and got dizzy. Some language is contradictory.

This is pure craziness: “A riparian owner has title in fee to the low water mark of a navigable watercourse of the state or a public navigable watercourse”

Tough cases make for bad law. Glad it failed.

I am of the opinion that the sponsor of the bill has a hidden agenda.
I think that agenda is probably tied to builders, sellers of & prospective owners of riverside McMansions.

“Get your canoes & kayaks off my river, and off my property you f----n peons”

BOB