Taylor River dispute getting rough between rafters and Wilder

“We won’t go to their level…”

Negotiations between The Wilder on the Taylor private fishing retreat and local rafting companies are getting testy. Lawyers for the Wilder claim the rafting outfitters are overstepping their bounds on the river and in the mediation process. The rafters claim the Wilder lawyers are breaking trusts agreed to in the negotiations.

Meetings between Three Rivers Outfitters, Scenic River Tours and the Wilder resumed Thursday, April 22 at the request of Colorado Governor Bill Ritter and are still ongoing with a possible agreement that would let boaters and anglers share a two-mile stretch of the river. That is the stick and carrot keeping both sides going.
Three Rivers and Scenic River, which are the only two commercial companies running the Taylor, have said that banning them from a two-mile section of water will lead them to financial ruin.
But according to Forest Service records obtained by Dick Bratton, a partner with the Gunnison law firm Bratton, Hill, Wilderson & Lock, which is representing the developers of the exclusive Wilder on the Taylor subdivision, Three Rivers only took 62 clients on the disputed section of river last year.
And Brad Roberts, co-owner of Harmel’s Resort just upstream from the Wilder property, isn’t shy about placing the blame for the dispute squarely on the shoulders of Scenic River Tours.
“Scenic River Tours has this obnoxious trespassing thing,” Roberts says.
“We have dealt with these guys now for 20 years and we’ve had no trouble.” But the rafting has gotten out of control in recent years, he says. And the fight that has been waged against him and his neighbor, Lewis Shaw, he feels, has involved people that haven’t been negatively affected by the landowners’ stand.
To prove it, Roberts got the Actual Use Reports from the Forest Service for Three Rivers’ operation on the Taylor through a Freedom of Information Act request and shared what he found with Bratton: while Scenic River Tours was taking thousands of clients through the property each summer, the guests that Three Rivers took through the Wilder property represented just .67 percent of its business.  
A press release from Bratton’s law firm says, “During the House Judiciary Committee hearing on February 8, [Three Rivers owner Mark] Schumacher testified that HB1188 was needed because he was ‘threatened by a lawsuit that would put [him] out of business.’”
The press release goes on to say, “In that Actual Use Report, Three Rivers states that it took a total of 6,482 guests through the Upper Taylor and 2,898 guests through the Lower Taylor in 2009. All but 14 of the Upper Taylor guests took out at the South Bank access point above the Jackson-Shaw property and all but 48 of the Lower Taylor guests put in at the Five Mile access point below the Jackson-Shaw property, the Report states.”
Kendall Burgemeister, the associate at Bratton Hill who wrote the press release, compared advertised prices to the numbers in the Report and found that Three Rivers “generated an estimated $425,530 in revenue from Taylor River rafting operations in 2009, but only an estimated $2,380—roughly one-half of one percent of the total—came from trips that passed through the Jackson-Shaw property.”
 Instead it is Scenic River Tours, Roberts says, causing many of the problems by taking more trips of thrill-seeking tourists through the private property than is reasonable. And everyone else floating through is fine by him. He says he has never stopped a private boater in his resort and has no intention to.
His resort, Harmel’s, even sends the guests wanting a whitewater river trip down to Three Rivers.
In a prepared statement, the local rafters expressed disappointment that Bratton is disclosing what they thought was confidential information in the midst of negotiation.
“Three Rivers Outfitting and Scenic River Tours entered into negotiations with Lewis Shaw’s attorneys on April 22 at the request of Governor Ritter’s office made on March 29. On April 22, all parties agreed that negotiations were confidential and in good faith. It’s unfortunate that Dick Bratton’s law firm, which represents Mr. Shaw, releases what the affected outfitters consider to be false and misleading statements, touching on the issues relevant to negotiations, to the press at will,” the statement said. “They must only be intended to discredit their neighbors, with whom they are in negotiations. Three Rivers Outfitting and Scenic River Tours will not go to their level. The truth will be known. Negotiations are ongoing. All parties agreed in writing that the contents of the mediation must remain confidential.”
Another negotiating meeting between the two parties hasn’t yet been scheduled.