Kix, the problem is the rivers we are talking about here are small rivers, rivers that one might wade, its doubtful an oil spill would ever occur on such a river. The issue is that for the history of this country anyone was able to move down a river and fish the river. Now these people are claiming, as under British law, they own the river from bank to bank and everything in it. Also, in the past even when the river was privately owned the owners never stopped sports fisherman from using the river (the law has always been if I own both sides you can float down the river, you can fish in it but you can't walk on the river bottom on my section of the river). The new owners don't want to farm or ranch, they want to own the land and in some cases will not allow fishermen to even float down their portion of the river, much less wade the river.

Here in East Tennessee we don't have that problem yet. Most of the fly fishing streams are in the National Forest and the ones that are not have owners that don't care if you walk down the middle of the stream fishing. As these farmers and ranchers retire and their farms are sold off as Yankee vacation developments if Oregon is allowed to implement this the same will occur here I am sure.