Comments on: Murky waters: First of likely many Roanoke Times stories on Jackson River controversy

By: Goldfish Cracker

Goldfish Cracker — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 19:31:49 +0000

First off I want to say, Thank you.

Your column and blog is a huge asset to outdoors men, women and even tourism in our area. I truly believe your column and blog helped to advance the Sunday Hunting Bill in the Legislature this year due to your readership and stance.

I know my fishing buddies from the Charlotte area ask me to forward them your Thursday reports before deciding on making a trip to the New, James or staying in NC for the weekends.

Secondly I am looking at planning a trip to the Jackson, below the dam for a float and fish soon. I have no knowledge of the river other than the “Crown Grant” issues and I am not exactly sure which portions of the Jackson River should be off limits. I have a few friends that are novice floaters that want to take a trip and I thought the Jackson might be suitable for a couples outing for mostly floating and some fishing. I could float the river and scout for a future more serious fishing float for the boys.

If you have any recommendations for put in/take outs and areas to avoid I would certainly appreciate any
advice or suggestions.

Thanks again for all the hard “work”.

By: patriot paddler

patriot paddler — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:54:27 +0000

on the lighter side…..an email from a fellow angler;
“oh yeah i can see it now, it’s 1790 and having survived the Revolution a veteran of the Virginia militia is pulling his canoe along a stretch of the Jackson, heavily laden with his trade of furs and game he enjoys the peace and solitude of the river and mountains. Suddenly, out of a small field a farmer appears proclaiming angrily, hey! You can’t do that! Thats my river and I have a grant from the King to prove it!

By: patriot paddler

patriot paddler — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:11:38 +0000

To clarify on the Jackson in particular, in the Kraft case the river was found to be navigable by the court based on the US Corps of Engineers assessment. PERIOD. DONE. FINISHED. Navigable waterways are under the jurisdiction of the US GOVERNMENT NOT THE KING OF ENGLAND. The water and beds are OWNED by the respective states. If there is any ruling otherwise then there is a fox in the henhouse but politics have made this an issue for decades in this state. I’ve spoken with several state officials about this over the years and most are on the peoples side, but as one person explained, “they know it’s a problem and something needs to be done but nobody wants to stick their neck out and make any waves”. It’s all about politics and money, the common man doesn’t stand a chance. Do you think the AG is going to PO some wealthy landowners that could contribute to his election fund? Or any politician? Judges are appointed in this state not elected, gee think there’s any political influence there? The CA in Bath bragged about charging a group of Boy Scouts with trespass for canoeing the Cowpasture, the Boy Scouts! One of the oldest conservation groups in the country! One man I interviewed was threatened with trespass by a state warden for parking on the side of a state road by a bridge, claiming the road and bridge was only an “easement” on private property. Blueprints from VDOT western district office show a 22 ft state OWNED right of way from the centerline outward at either side of the road including the bridge. As a VDOT engineer explained, “you don’t think the state would be dunb enough to spend a million bucks on a two lane bridge placed on an easement do you?” Most of the state from Fairfax to the mountains was a land grant at one time, whats next, we can’t use the Shenandoah, James or Potomac. Wake up Virginians.

By: TakeTheFly

TakeTheFly — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:34:51 +0000

Ben, You hit the nail on the head. As much as the plaintiffs wish their land was part of the crown and commonwealth grants which were the subject of the Kraft v. Burr case, it isn’t. However, this hasn’t stopped them from using a much more lenient standard (“color of title”) to sue the anglers in hopes a judge will let them hide behind the part of Kraft v. Burr which said, since both parties don’t claim ownership of the stream bed, the onus was put on Chuck Kraft to disprove the claims of the parties who claimed to own the land. In Kraft v. Burr the land owners had grants which specifically referenced stream beds. In this case no one can find the evidence of “stream bed” being mentioned.

At the end of the day, the possibility exists for the plaintiffs to win this case without ever proving in court they own the river bottom. That is why the case is so dangerous, because this civil suit tactic could spread to land owners who “wished” they’d owned the bottom and attempt to make is so by suing an ussuspecting, poorly financed party. A boy scout for example.

If issued, this injunction is as good as a cable across the river. Folks had better take this as seriously as if someone were trying to run cable across their river.

By: Al

Al — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 23:34:26 +0000

Ben: THANK YOU VERY MUCH! I will read them. Funny however, I went back to a paper done by some people at VT in 1999 which identified the grants of the Kraft v Burr case as “William Jackson grant of June 1,1750 and then a second grant to a “Richard Morris in 1769″.

That can be found in the paper, “Inland Recreational Fishing Rights in Virginia: Implications of the Virginia Supreme Court Case Kraft v Burr.”

I think the web address may be http://www.vwrrc.vt.edu/vwrrc.htm

I scribed this from the paper, not posted as a link.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 20:32:55 +0000

Al,

According to the legal documents at the Virginia Rivers Defense website, the grants that the plaintiffs claim support their privatization of that section of the revier are the Abercromby Grant filed in 1760 and the Man Grant filed in 1789. One can access these grants in the Virginia Library’s database at http://lva1.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/F/?func=file&file_name=find-b-clas30&local_base=CLAS30. The language is the King’s English and the writing is old script, but you can magnify them each and read them pretty well. They certainly convey a lot of land, but unless I am missing something, you need to be a pretty imaginative developer to read anything like streambed ownership or exclusive fishing rghts into them. In the grants in the Kraft case, both streambeds and fishing were specifically mentioned in the major grant. So if the plaintiffs win this case, it seems it will take a very generous reading of the grants in favor of the plaintiffs, which is why (in my view) what makes this case so important for public rights on other rivers.

By: Al

Al — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:06:00 +0000

John H: We see it the way we see it because we are fishermen. If we were landowners or developers we would see it the other way. Rights of ownership is pretty much defined in law. Unfortunately in this case, if the landowner links his property to the grant specifically and directly, they will prevail. BUT, contrary to the views expressed by some, I don’t feel if they win it is going to impact fishing anywhere other than the specific section of the Jackson and maybe with some additional sections. The reality is that any landowner anywhere who can trace the link to a similar grant has always had the ability to restrict people from walking on “their river bottom”.

Still wondering if anyone can name the specific grant in this case????

By: TakeTheFly

TakeTheFly — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 01:09:39 +0000

The defendants are claiming to have only “color of title,” which means they will show the court maybe an original grant or two and then possibly their current title (or tax map) to the river bottom, and say we have “it” all the way down the line. To technically “own” the river bottom they must have an uninterrupted chain of deeds to the river bottom from a crown grant to the current title, for if that chain is broken (in any one transaction along the way) the Virginia statue, which doesn’t allow for ownership of river bottoms, kicks in. However, the sticky wicket here is that they are going to hide behind a standard that was established in Kraft v. Burr which put the burden on the angler (Chuck Kraft) to disprove the ownership claims of the landowner since both parties did not claim ownership of the river bottom. If both parties claimed to own the river bottom then the judge would make both parties show all their evidence and then would decide. This is what is so terrifying about Kraft v. Burr, especially in the hands of greedy people and a judge who only concerns himself with case law versus practical application of law. If the judge only follows Kraft v. Burr, then the plaintiffs could be bluffing and if the defendants can’t raise enough money to do an extensive title research, the judge could grant the injuction b/c the defendants couldn’t “disprove” the claims made by the plaintiff. I have heard that many of the records might have been stored in the Fincastle courthouse which burned down a few years back, making any extensive title search nearly impossible. If this happens then nothing is stopping the next landowner from seeking an injunction against some hapless angler or boy scout, who won’t fight back, to virtually privatize their stretch of river. These things have a way of spreading like a virus.

By: John Hopkins

John Hopkins — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:59:34 +0000

I just can’t see why this is any different than fishing in Smith Mountain Lake. You can boat right up to someone’s dock and fish around under and through the dock that somebody built on private property, and they can’t say a thing about it. Yeah, you are trespassing if you are standing on the bank, and maybe that’s what the developers were selling when they marketed the real estate and never thought about navigable traffic. This NEEDS to go to general assembly and legislation NEEDS to do away with Kings Grants. There’s a big reason I did not watch the English wedding on TV, I’M NOT ENGLISH!!!

By: H2o

H2o — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 22:13:53 +0000

Mark , Its all good. Cant remember exactly what was deleted………I apologize for posting something that was not appropriate for the blog……. Thanks I wish you would have also edited my typos too. H2o