New Mexico official delays vote

ALBUQUERQUE» The debate over whether the public has a right to fish or float streams and other waterways that flow through private property has percolated for decades in many Western states — and it has reaching a boiling point in New Mexico.

The state Game Commission, which oversees New Mexico’s wildlife management agency and sets hunting and fishing rules for the state, was scheduled Friday to take up the applications of landowners who want to keep the public from accessing their stretches of streams without permission by certifying the waterways as non-navigable.

Chairwoman Sharon Salazar Hickey started the meeting by saying she planned to defer a vote on the applications after critics raised questions about a potential conflict of interest and suggested that she recuse herself from voting because of her daughter being offered a job at the same law firm representing the landowners.

Salazar Hickey’s decision elicited surprise and frustration from fellow commissioners and people who had traveled to Santa Fe for the public hearing.

While Salazar Hickey was adamant that she and the other commissioners had no conflicts, she said she believed it is important for the attorney general’s office to conduct a review before the commission takes up the stream access issue again at an August meeting.

U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-new Mexico, is among the people who have argued that public access to the waterways should not be limited, regardless of whether streams are classified as non-navigable.

Advocates of private property rights have argued that if access to the waterways is opened up in New Mexico, property values will decline and there would be less interest by private owners to invest in conserving tracts of land along streams. Some fishing outfitters and guides have said their business would be harmed.