{"id":57851,"date":"2024-07-01T09:11:35","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T14:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/?p=57851"},"modified":"2024-11-19T06:36:36","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T12:36:36","slug":"dnrs-feet-wet-guidance-in-court-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/dnrs-feet-wet-guidance-in-court-2\/","title":{"rendered":"DNR’s “Feet Wet” Guidance in Court"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bruce Ross, Executive Director bross@wisducks.org<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association\u2019s July, 2024 Newsletter<\/a>\u00a0edition.<\/em><\/p>\n

Landowners with property subject to flooding cheered when a Jefferson County Judge issued a ruling that the DNR\u2019s \u201cFeet Wet\u201d guidance to the public is flawed. Other duck hunters began to make plans to hunt locations not subject to this ruling .<\/p>\n

First, Wisconsin\u2019s public trust doctrine (enshrined in the Constitution) states that our navigable waters are held in trust for all citizens of the state, and shall be forever free for public use.\u00a0 This ruling doesn\u2019t change that.<\/p>\n

Second, The Ordinary High Water Mark (OWHM) defines the normal boundary between navigable waters and private lands.\u00a0 This ruling doesn\u2019t change that.<\/p>\n

What this ruling does<\/span> change (at least for now), is the DNR\u2019s longstanding interpretation that as long as your feet stay wet, persons may navigate and recreate over private property in conditions of flooding (i.e. above the OHWM) for purposes that are acceptable below the OHWM.\u00a0 This ruling said the DNR is wrong on this interpretation.<\/p>\n

This is a significant change to long-standing concepts for waterway users.\u00a0 Whether this is a good<\/em> ruling or bad<\/em> depends on where you hunt:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Duck hunters who are used to running over flooded private property to get to their spots will have to seek other locations or methods of getting there.<\/li>\n
  2. Duck hunters who own such land will now be able to enforce property boundaries for land they bought, and on which they now pay property taxes.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    It\u2019s not clear if the DNR will accept this ruling or appeal. Even if they accept the ruling, there will be a significant period where the DNR must follow the rulemaking process to issue new guidance. \u00a0I suspect we will know in the next 30 days, which is the legal limit on making an appeal.\u00a0 So, stand by for a DNR decision shortly.<\/p>\n

    In the meantime, this is a good opportunity to consider how our actions as duck hunters may affect property owners.\u00a0 The plaintiff landowner brought this action because users of airboats and other conveyances were destroying some of his property as they travelled over it.\u00a0 That\u2019s a tough thing to justify.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Bruce Ross, Executive Director bross@wisducks.org This article originally appeared in Wisconsin Waterfowl Association\u2019s July, 2024 Newsletter\u00a0edition. Landowners with property subject to flooding cheered when a Jefferson County Judge issued a ruling that the DNR\u2019s \u201cFeet Wet\u201d guidance to the public is flawed. Other duck hunters began to make plans to hunt locations not subject…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-57851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advocacy","tag-current"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57853,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57851\/revisions\/57853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atomiccoffee.com\/WWA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}