Utahns Win Five-Year Battle for Stream Access

The ruling culminates a lawsuit filed by the Utah Stream Access Coalition in 2010, which sought to declare the "Public Waters Access Act" unconstitutional. The ignominiously named Act, contrary to its title, removed of the public's right to use over 2,700 miles of Utah's rivers and streams, many miles of which have benefited from publicly-funded habitat and stream bank restoration, flood abatement, and other projects. The lawsuit named as defendants the State of Utah and Victory Ranch, a Wasatch County development selling luxury home sites offering exclusive access to more than four miles of the Provo River, one of Utah's premier blue ribbon trout fisheries.

In the ruling the Court prohibits Victory Ranch from any action which 'prohibits, prevents, impedes, limits or impairs the public's right to access the Upper Provo River where it flows through VRA's property,' and prohibits the State of Utah from enforcing the restrictions provided in the Act.