On Friday, Bob Teufel, TU's acting board chairman, pulled his controversial resolution that would have prohibited Trout Unlimited members from participating in disputes that pitted claims of public stream access against claims of private property.
Teufel said his decision was greatly influenced by the uproar that came from Montana.
On Friday, TU's national board voted on a new proposal to create an interim committee to review the issue of access with a recommendation due by the group's annual meeting this fall. Votes were still being gathered late Friday.
The committee review will allow people time to fully explore the issue in a very transparent way, Teufel said.
“I'm hoping this change in process will allow people to feel more comfortable about how we move forward from here,” he said. “I'm certainly expecting to hear from all my new friends in Montana.”
The controversy boiled to the surface last month after TU's chairman resigned over the issue.
In his resignation letter, John Maher of Sherman Oaks, Calif., said that while he was a “staunch believer in preserving public access,” he held that TU wasn't the appropriate group to promote or defend public access in disputes with landowners.”
“In addition to their often murky nature and all the acrimony they entail, disputes between public access proponents and landowners have nothing to do with conservation,” Maher wrote. “There is nothing in TU's strategic plan or in its simple, eloquent mission statement or sweeping vision statement about promoting or defending public access; nor should there be.
“To be successful as a national conservation organization, TU must be able to enlist anglers and landowners, among others, in a common cause. ... TU must reckon with two simple facts: that many of those waters run through private land that is not publicly accessible, and that many landowners are understandably reluctant to work with a group whose motives they perceive as mixed.”
In Montana - where public access disputes are often hard fought - the response to TU's proposed resolution was immediate and loud.
Matt Clifford, Montana TU's national leadership council representative, likened the initial proposal to poking a stick in the eye of thousands of rank-and-file anglers in the state.
“The response shows how tremendously important the issue of access is to the membership of Montana Trout Unlimited,” Clifford said. “You can't simply pull out of that issue without talking to your members.”
This isn't the first time the access issue has come up on the national level.
“This has been going on for several years, although I thought it was largely resolved,” said Bruce Farling, Montana Trout Unlimited's executive director. “This outcome is better than what it could have been. We've stepped back from the cliff. ... It should have never gotten this far.”
This ongoing debate is much deeper than a question over access and private land, Farling said.
“This is really about the more fundamental question of who we are as an organization and who is going to run it,” he said. “Is it going to be the 140,000 grassroots members across the country or will it be a few people inside the Beltway?”
That's an issue that many fast-growing organizations like Trout Unlimited have to face eventually, Farling said. Right now, he said, there seems to be a little less appreciation for the volunteers who do the bulk of the heavy lifting.
Trout Unlimited got its start in 1959. Montana Trout Unlimited formed the following year. Public access to Montana's waterways has always been an important issue for the state organization.
“I work for the Montana organization,” Farling said. “It's the best Trout Unlimited organization in the nation. What the board doesn't seem to understand is that it's no coincidence that the best wild trout fishery in the country is in the place that has the best public access.”
Steve Luebeck, a longtime George Grant chapter member, said there's a lot of unhappiness among chapter members about the ongoing national debate over public access.
“Whatever happens, it's not going to change the way we operate or how we go about fighting for public access,” Luebeck said. “Right now, I don't know what the George Grant chapter will do if it goes the other way. ... If that happens, Trout Unlimited is essentially saying some chapters are expendable - and if that's the case then so be it in my opinion.”
Luebeck doesn't buy into the argument that defending public access and accomplishing good habitat conservation are exclusive.
“We work with riparian landowners all the time, and we've been able to get a lot of good work accomplished,” he said. “Public access is a small part of what we do, but it's very significant to our membership.”
Access isn't the only controversial issue that TU takes on, Luebeck said.
“Many issues Montana Trout Unlimited is involved in are contentious,” he said. “Somebody out there can always take exception to TU's stand. We're always stepping on someone's toes. ... I don't think it's right for us to shy away from important issues just because we might lose a large check from someone.”
In Montana, Trout Unlimited is a grassroots organization that depends on a motivated membership, said Tom Anacker, Montana TU chairman.
“Enjoying a quality experience on Montana's rivers and streams is what motivates them to volunteer,” Anacker said. “If we lose our ability to have good stream access, it will be detrimental to our organization. ... Montana has one of the strongest stream access laws in the country.”
“We're not looking to expand on that, but it certainly is in the best interest of our organization to hold the status quo,” he said.
Montana Trout Unlimited has 13 chapters spread across the state with about 3,400 members.
The continuing battle over public access is at the center of the debate, said Steve Moyer, Trout Unlimited's vice president for governmental affairs and volunteer operations.
Moyer said there has been “lingering unhappiness” within the TU board over the Mitchell Slough case in the Bitterroot Valley, which pitted wealthy landowners such as Huey Lewis and Charles Schwab against public access advocates, including Montana Trout Unlimited. There was also unease over Montana TU's support of legislation currently working its way through the Montana Legislature that would clarify the use of fences constructed near county bridges.
From a national standpoint, the access issue is incredibly complicated, said Kirk Otey, TU's National Leadership Council chairman.
Every state addresses the issue differently.
“In many areas, public access is simply not an issue,” Otey said. “For instance, in North Carolina where I live, 90 percent of the cold-water habitat is found on national forest lands and there isn't a problem with access. ... In the Midwest, almost all the cold-water habitat is on private lands. It's just night and day.”
“There are a lot of different attitudes about access when you go from place to place,” he said. “That's what people in Montana have to understand. We're trying to blend a policy on a national level. It's incredibly complex.”
Reporter Perry Backus can be reached at 523-5259 or at pbackus@missoulian.com
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