I haven't been checking the forum a lot lately, but I haven't seen much, or any discussion about the legislation that will be proposed and probably passed in the Texas State legislature in the next session to ban all motorized vehicles in all river bottoms in the State. That doesn't sound like any big deal, but if you grew up in and live in Texas, it is a really big deal. Texans by state law have always enjoyed unrestricted access to all natural river bottoms up to the high water mark. This meant Texans and anyone who visited Texas could legally follow any river from it's source to its end as long as you stayed in the river bed.

In Texas, rivers like the Red, the Canadian, the Brazos and many others are typically hundreds of miles long and the river beds are often many miles wide. These river beds have historically been unrestricted areas used for all types of recreation by generations of Texans. For most generations, that meant you could play within a few miles of the point at which you accessed the river. With the advent of motorized vehicles like dirt bikes, dune buggies, and now ATV's; most people can now access river beds a great distance from the original access point. This has, for many years; upset large landowners who own the land adjacent to the river beds. They always felt that even if they didn't own the river beds, they could still control access and therefore the river bed is mine.

With the proposed legislation, they are attempting, probably successfully; to again restrict access to those river beds by law rather than distance. In this case, they have enlisted the support of some environmental groups to petition the legislature to protect these "mistreated" public lands. Like so many other parts of the country where these "well meaning" environmental groups have managed to close public lands to the public, they will probably be successful.

I believe the best test of who is really behind the move to ban the beds will be demonstrated when the vote is taken. Since Texas, for the first time has a Rebublican controlled legislature and since the normal agenda's of the Republican party and the environmental groups are so opposed, if the Republican's vote for the ban, it has nothing to do with environmental issues and all to do with money issues like campaign contributions. The really sad thing is that they could then start the next election cycle by pointing out their votes to protect the environment without mentioning that the same vote stripped all Texans of another right.

I really hate to look at it in that way because I am a conservative Republican, but I know that politics does make strange bedfellows, expecially when it involves money (campaign donations). Lets face it, we couldn't have won the legislature in the last election without some deep pockets and now it just may be time to pay the piper by selling off the rights of the average Texan.

Ted