Court Opinion

ID: 9607540
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:59:30.640077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:18.779868
License: Public Domain

Finley, J.
(concurring specially) — We are confronted in this appeal with a complex natural resources problem certain to become more and more acute in this age of a geometrically increasing demand by more and more people for outdoor recreational and leisure time activities. The problem is one of insuring that the greatest possible number of Washingtonians, and others, are able to utilize reasonably the natural resources of our state for recreational activity. With respect to the particular outdoor activity involved— fresh water fishing — the following developments must be considered: (a) the increasing interest and recreational needs of the public in fishing in the nonnavigable lakes of the state, (b) the concomitant establishment, by the state, of hatcheries for the propagation of game fish, (c) coupled with the acquisition of water-front, public-access areas, and (d) the stocking of nonnavigable lakes with the fry or young game fish produced in the aforementioned hatcheries.
In the instant case, a problem has arisen seemingly because of a combination of two factors: (1) the state has not acquired complete ownership of all the water-front property on the lakes in question; and (2) because, in fact, much of the water-front property is held in private ownership by numerous individuals. Many of these riparian property owners have constructed summer or year-round residences. They have an interest, and obviously certain rights, in the use and enjoyment of the lake property they own. Fishing the lake in question does not constitute their only interest; it represents only one of the several interests and rights which riparian owners exercise or possess in conjunction with their individual ownership of lake waterfront property. Added to this puzzle is the factor implicit in RCW 90.03.010 that, “subject to existing rights all waters within the state belong to the public.”
The problem is difficult, but not an insolvable one. It is, it *762seems to me, typical of juristic problems requiring a balancing of interests and rights in the great and time-honored tradition of the common law. We are presented with the legal concept of state ownership of the waters of the non-navigable lakes of the state. Additionally, since the state has actually acquired — and in effect 'holds in quasi private ownership — certain lake frontage property on Phantom Lake, the legal concept of “riparian rights,” as acquired by the state, must be added to the puzzle. Also to be added to the brew is the legal concept of the “riparian rights” of the numerous individuals who hold in private ownership other water-front or lake-frontage property on Phantom Lake. A further additional ingredient is the fact that the state has expended funds in developing a public-access area, and that some effort was made to stock Phantom Lake — apparently, with acquiescence and even encouragement from other owners of lake-front property. But trouble has come to what otherwise would be an idyllic recreational haven to be enjoyed reasonably by both the abutting property owners as well as members of the public. Obviously, the shattering of this Shangri La for followers of Isaac Walton arises from the uncontrolled, indiscriminate public use, and, more importantly, the destructive abuse, of the recreational potential of Mother Nature afforded by Phantom Lake and supplemented by the fish stocking and other efforts of the Department of Game.
If the problem is approached strictly in the sense of the legal concept of “riparian rights,” its solution will be a restricted and limited one, and probably inadequate, in terms of its recognition of either the rights of the public or the rights of the individual lake-front owners. The same kind of danger or limitation is apparent in approaching the problem solely in terms of the legal concept of state ownership of the waters of nonnavigable lakes. Again, in the best tradition of the common law, some gloss upon the legal concept of “riparian rights” and upon the legal concept of state ownership of the waters of the lake seems indicated and necessary for a juristic accommodation of the conflicting interests and rights of members of the public *763and the private owners of water front on Phantom Lake. Without employing or adverting to the foregoing nomenclature, or characterization, it seems to me the reasoning of the majority opinion by Judge Hill resolves the problem in a common-sense, practicable way — again, in the best tradition of the common law — and that the results reached constitute an adequate and highly desirable solution of the problem involved.
It may be said that the resolution of the problem as proposed in the opinion by Judge Hill means regulation and regimentation, and that this would constitute an undesirable and unnecessary restriction upon sports fishermen — in fact, an interference with the rights, the liberty, and the freedom of members of the public who like and indulge in fishing as a highly desirable outdoor recreational activity. Thinking or reasoning of this nature probably has its antecedents in pioneer days and the frontier 'history of this state and was quite appropriate to that era. But the answer to this nostalgic train of thought, and I believe an obvious answer, is that we are no longer living in a backwoods, frontier society. Many new people and families are coming to this state, and our population is increasing at an annual rate of between fifty and sixty thousand per annum. If present members of the public and our expanding population over the next several years are to enjoy the beauty, the outdoor recreational potential of the natural resources, and the assorted other outdoor blessings of nature in the Northwest, some reasonable regulation is not only desirable in the indicated area — it is absolutely essential. It is a fact of life of which we can even take judicial notice that all members of the public are not sensitively and appropriately appreciative of the beauties of nature and the outdoor recreational resources with which we are abundantly blessed at the present time in this state. There should not be — in fact there cannot be — overweening sympathy for those whose conduct is destructive of the beauties of nature and the outdoor recreational resources to which more orderly and appreciative members of the public, as well as private land and home owners, should be justly and rightly entitled for *764many generations to come. Hooliganism is hooliganism— whether deliberate or unthinkingly negligent. Mother Nature has a way of taking care of those few creatures who fou.1 their own nests. Society is no less entitled to, and should accomplish, the same results through common sense and reasonable regulation of resource utilization.
The Department of Game of the state of Washington has done an admirable job in developing and increasing sports fishing facilities in the waters of this state. The department has indeed performed a great public service in thus planning and developing healthful, wholesome, and highly desirable outdoor recreation facilities for our citizenry. But this picture of public service is yet somewhat incomplete. The sovereign state, represented by the Department of Game, cannot simply in effect walk away from this idyllic picture with a feeling that a fine public service mission has been fully accomplished, and that, willy-nilly or otherwise, the commendable fishing facilities which have been created will take care of themselves, or that the public, through self-imposed restraints, will take care of most of the problems relative to conservation and protection of their opportunities to engage in and to enjoy fishing on the nonnavigable lakes. Furthermore, it may be somewhat regrettable that the modern view of the judicial function does not encompass the express or tacit encouragement of “spontaneous” vigilante activity in order to take care of the hooligan element; i.e., the small minority who can’t, won’t, or don’t give a continental about the rights of others, as demonstrated by their abuse and desecration of lake fishing and the wonders of nature in this state. Paraphrasing, in part, Judge Hill’s cogent majority opinion, it seems to me that the state can permit the public to enjoy the right to fish Phantom Lake so long as this does not constitute an unreasonable interference with the rights of all concerned. But this implies an obligation on the part of the state to patrol, police, and regulate the use of the lake by the public, and others, to prevent the use by any from becoming an unreasonable interference with the right to reasonable use of the lake by all concerned.
*765For the reasons indicated, I find myself in substantial agreement with the reasoning of the majority opinion by Judge Hill, and I concur with the results reached therein.