A teenage male fell and struck his head at Buttermilk Falls, which is private property in Le Roy. Extrication will not be needed; everyone's out of the water. He has a head laceration. An 18-year-old female there is said to feel lightheaded and dizzy and the medics are called for her in non-emergency mode.
The location is 8395 Lake Street Road. Le Roy Fire Department and medics are responding.
UPDATE 3:03 p.m.: Equipment held to responders on scene. No additional apparatus needed.
It is private. The people
It is private. The people(company) that own it are less than kind to visitors. They press charges for trespassing. Its a natural wonder of western new york, and they need to donate it to the town or county or state or something so it can be made into a park. Keeping something this beautiful private is kind of a dick move.
I may be mistaken,
I may be mistaken, Christopher, but, I think the Oatka Creek is a navigable waterway. As such, it should be legal to reach the "falls", providing you do it correctly. And, as shown in a previous article, it is legal to "go on" private land to go around blockages - such as log jams, waterfalls, etc. If you want to avoid jam-ups in the legal system, you just have to do it in a legal way.
Ed, you bring up a good point
Ed, you bring up a good point, I've been fishing the Tonawanda for many years and have had my share of disputes with property owners who attempted to stop me from fishing the creek bank. The best thing to do is call a Conservation office, they can recite the law to the property owner. That doesn't always resolve the problem however as one landowner began throwing rocks in the water to scare off the fish.
Yes, Frank, but...
Yes, Frank, but...
It's a little more complicated than that. First off, if you are on private property, walking along the bank of a creek, or, a river, and you are NOT on the property (land) MERELY to avoid a "blockage", my understanding is, you could be warned/cited for trespass.
As I stated in my first comment, "...I think the Oatka Creek is a navigable waterway". That "navigable waterway" status might, or, might not, also go for the Tonawanda Creek.
If you go to https://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/8371.html , you'll find some interesting reading - such as, the Q and A section.
Here's a snippet of that section:
Q. May a person travel in a boat or canoe on a waterway which is posted?
A. The answer to this question depends in part on whether the waterway is subject to the tides. Waterways that are affected by the tides are considered to be "navigable in law" and the public automatically has a right to navigate on these waters, regardless of who owns the bed or if the waterway is posted.
The issue of whether the public has a right to navigate on freshwater waterways not affected by the tides is more complex. The public has a right to navigate on freshwater waterways that are publicly owned, but has a right to navigate on freshwater waterways crossing private property only if the waterway is "navigable in fact." The courts have held that a waterway is navigable in fact if, in its natural state and ordinary volume of water, it has practical utility to the public as a highway for trade, travel or transport. Both utility for commercial use and capacity for recreational use can be considered in determining whether a waterway has such practical utility. If a waterway satisfies this test, it is navigable in fact regardless of whether a court has ever made a finding on the issue, and regardless of whether the property owner posts no trespassing signs on the waterway.
A waterway may be navigable in fact even if it is not capable of being navigated against its current and even if the capacity of the waterway for supporting navigation is not continuous over time, as long as the capacity necessary to support navigation continues for a sufficient length of time to make the waterway useful as a highway for trade, travel or transport. A waterway may also be navigable in fact even where it contains occasional rapids, falls, dams or other natural or manmade obstructions so long as it nonetheless is useful as a highway for trade, travel or transport. If a waterway is navigable in fact, the right to public navigation authorizes a boater to get out of the boat to pull it around obstacles or to get around obstacles by portaging over private property, so long as the portage is by the most direct and least intrusive safe route possible. The right to navigation does not authorize the public to go on private land for purposes not directly related to navigation, such as camping, hunting, or hiking. Also, the public may not cross private property for the purpose of accessing or leaving a navigable waterway.
Q. If I have a right to navigate on a waterway, do I also have the right to fish from my boat on that waterway?
A. It is clear that the public has a right to fish in tidal waterways and publicly owned non-tidal waterways. However, the fact that a particular freshwater waterway on private property is navigable in fact does not by itself mean that the public has a right to fish in the waterway. The right to fish on a privately owned, navigable in fact waterway depends on several factors, including: deeded rights of the property owner; whether the State has acquired public fishing rights from the land owner; and whether the public has acquired the right to fish as a result of a history of fishing without landowner permission. A 1997 New York Court of Appeals ruling found that the public did not have a right to wade in the water to fish, or anchor a vessel to fish, in the navigable in fact freshwater Salmon River where it crossed property owned by Douglaston Manor.
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But, to just walk along the creek bank, willy-nilly, while being on private property, could be considered trespassing, in my opinion.
Again, I wonder how/if the "trespassing on private property" issue changes, IF the creek is overflowing its "normal" size. During the spring, the water might be (encroaching?) onto what is normally private property. Does the water's "edge" decide what the creek consists of? Can people "legally" walk through people's yards on the west side of Rt. 98, simply because that's where the creek water is (at the moment)?
Hmm... Life's mysteries.