Stream and water access has long been a complex issue across the West, particularly in Colorado, and this year, it’s once again at the forefront of conversation. In this episode, we’re joined by former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter and former Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Dan Prenzlow to break down the legal framework behind the right to float and right to wade debate currently on the table.
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Haley Mirr (00:06):
Welcome back to the Land Bulletin Podcast, where every other week we bring you experts in the field to impart their knowledge when it comes to the ranch and sporting property market, buying and selling advice, the latest best stewardship practices, as well as topics that impact landowners every day. I'm your host, Haley Mirr. Let's jump in.
Welcome back to the Land Bulletin Podcast. This is a very special episode because we are looking at something very important to a lot of our landowners. Throughout the West, stream access has always been a topic of conversation and recently new decisions have been passed in places like New Mexico, changing access and providing greater access for the public. Today, we'll be speaking with the retired director of Colorado Parks and Wildlife, Dan Prenslow, and the former governor of Colorado Bill Ritter to discuss what the current law is regarding stream access in Colorado, some of the changes in new conversations surrounding right to wade and right to float in the state.
(01:00):
So without further ado, welcome gentlemen to the podcast.
Bill Ritter (01:03):
Thanks. Thanks so much for having us on.
Haley Mirr (01:06):
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we're excited to learn a lot about what's going on and educate the public of Colorado. For listeners who may not be familiar, why has stream access been such a persistent and unresolved issue in Colorado? And I'll start with you, Governor.
Bill Ritter (01:22):
Yeah, I'd say it's because of how it's treated in other places in the West. You take the example of Montana. If you find a way to get on public water or you have permission to enter private property, you can wade up and down a stream or river all the way up and down it up into the high watermark on the banks and it's legal. It's perfectly legal to do that. And in Colorado, since really the beginning of our statehood, we've treated it differently. And so the law and the body of law that is about what are called riparian issues is that the person who owns the property on the side of the river, the riparian owner, they own out to the middle of the river. And if you own on both sides of the river, you own the whole river and you own the bottom of the river so that anybody touching that bottom is committing a trespass.
(02:22):
And that's sort of how it's been viewed by the courts that have looked at it.
(02:31):
There's a variety of legal issues concerned here that people, the courts have treated it over time. And so we are at a place where what's undisputed is right now in Colorado is that the river, the person who owns the riverside, the riparian owner owns all the way out to the middle and it's their private property. And if you infringe upon that in any way, that's a trespass. So that's why it's different because stream access is treated differently by different people. And there are, I think, coalitions of people who believe it shouldn't be that way in Colorado and have argued for a change in the law that would bring about a right to wade on private property so that the public would have access to what's now considered private property. And then this question around how to treat the right to float across private property.
Haley Mirr (03:27):
And I would love to know, Dan, from your perspective, and then governor, if you have some anecdotes as well, from your perspective, what's changed in recent years that has brought this conversation back into focus? I know we've experienced some things with landowners, but I'd love to know from your perspective, Dan, what's changed in recent years to make this more at the forefront of the conversation?
Dan Prenzlow (03:48):
Yeah, thank you. And I may let, or probably really good to have Governor Ritter talk a little more about the 2010, 2011 timeframe for history. But there's always been interesting kind of discussions and pushes about, and you'll hear the word navigable rivers at statehood and by constitution at the Supreme Court has said that Colorado's not navigable rivers. And we can talk more about that. But what's changed is that there are several groups that think that like to see that Colorado, even though it's been 150 years and part of what the state of Colorado picked on private land, not public land ownership of waterways, they'd like to see that changed. And not to be an alarmist, but I will add what Governor Ritter talked about is, so you'll hear a lot about, Oh, Montana. Montana's a wonderful example. Well, Montana's been like that. They do have navigable rivers.
(04:57):
If you read the Montana law, it's not just a right to float or a right to wage. You can actually, if you access a legal point, you can drive your vehicle or your four-wheeler right up the river. You can camp on the river, you can hunt on the river. The only thing you can't do is hunt big game on the river on private land that you don't have permission to. That's the Montana law. And so you're talking, don't want to be an alarmist, but we're talking about a significant potential. Now, different states have treated pieces and parts of that differently, but when you hear about Montana, you should do a little research. It's pretty onerous on the landowner.
Haley Mirr (05:43):
That's good to know. I know we do a lot of work in Colorado and Wyoming, but we've always understood that Montana's a whole different ballgame up there. Dan mentioned a little bit of 2010 and 2011, Governor. How has that have to do with everything that's going on today?
Bill Ritter (06:03):
So I'm going to do just a little bit of a historical perspective here and go all the way back to the '70s. There was a case, I believe it was either in Grand Orout County, but there were people who were accessing a river by floating across it, but also by getting out and waiting everything. And so they were met at the takeout and a sheriff gave them a ticket for trespassing. It's called the Emirate case and went all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court. Colorado Supreme Court found that, again, they upheld this idea that the river bottom is owned by the property owner adjacent to it. They also said some things about what is above the bottom, that there's ownership rights and above the bottom. And in spite of that Emirate case, there's been a sense in Colorado that you had a right to float a river that you could float across without touching the bottom, although it was never really ensconced in the law.
(07:01):
But then what happened on the Taylor River in 2009, I think, is that a ranch owner from out of state bought the river and there were rafting companies that floated across this property there, commercial viability relied upon it, and he built a cable across it and really was restricting any access at all for people to float. So what happened was the legislator from, at the time, Gunnison County, that House District, Kathleen Curry, she ran a bill called Right to Float. And very soon after that, landowners in Colorado came together and began amassing a number of titles that they wanted to file in either petition form, but to file them for a fall ballot argument over whether or not you had a right to float. So the landowners were looking at excluding it all together. The people who looked at the actual right to float knew that you had to do something … They thought they had to do something to make it lawful and to ensure that it was there in the law and positive.
(08:15):
And what I saw was a big fight coming while I was governor over this that could really end the practice of what we'd been doing in Colorado, which is allowing people to float over rivers that they can float over without touching bottom, fish them, raft them, those kinds of things through private property. And I didn't want that. And so what I did
(08:36):
Was set up a group of what I considered to be stakeholders. We formed a commission by executive order and we asked them to negotiate the Taylor River situation. And so we brought in the people on the Taylor, the private landowner, we brought in the rafting company, and we brought in a lot of other people who had interest in recreational use, in agricultural use, and any other kind of consumptive water use that you might think about, and had them sort of negotiate that. And they did. The Taylor River landowner was eventually happy with that, saying, okay, they can still raft across this river, but we're going to restrict it to a certain number of trips a day, especially when there was low water, there was going to be greater restriction on the number of trips, and it ended that conflict. So it ended for time, and it really developed a bit of a template for how to deal with these kinds of conflicts when they arose.
(09:32):
And again, because the Embert case, people will sometimes question, “Okay, do you have a right to float?” And we in practice in Colorado have been treating it as if, yes, you have a right to float. Well, then what happened now, I think close to 10 years ago, maybe not 10 years ago, eight years ago is that a person wanted to challenge this whole issue about the river bottom. So this is on the Arkansas River now, and he went in and he was fishing on private property. He was kind of shooed off by the landowners and actually I think even shot at. So that's not a good thing at all, but he wanted to demonstrate that this was a badly conceived doctrine of landowners owning the bottom of the river. And so it went all the way to the Colorado Supreme Court. The Colorado Supreme Court actually said, no, you don't have standing as an individual to challenge this doctrine.
(10:35):
It's just not something you as an individual can challenge because this is longstanding doctrine and you have to be here either as a governmental entity that's challenging it or somebody else who has a land owner claim to the land. So they said no to standing, let it go. And that I think created a greater desire on the part of advocates who are doing this around the west. As you mentioned before, they're doing it in states around the west, a greater desire to come into Colorado and actually try and get this in front of voters. And so there was a movie made and it was about the right to wade really. And there are people that are part of this movie that are talking about how it should be all of our property. But as you know, landowners, and this is agriculture landowners and other … So ag landowners, ranchers, farmers, a lot of different people has spent a great deal of money on improving their riparian area, the river area along their property.
(11:48):
And that value that they have spent would actually be represented in our mind as the possibility of a taking by passing something that gave the public the right to trespass or to go onto their land after they spent all this money trying to improve it. And it has a value. And somebody would have to establish what that value is, but when that happens, that's called the taking. It's against the Constitution of Colorado and the United States Constitution, the Fifth Amendment. And when there's a taking of property without just compensation, then the property owner has to be compensated. And so a big concern on our part is that this really is disruptive. The right to wade would be totally disruptive and would cause at least Colorado to have to pay the compensation, the just compensation for people who have made big, significant investments into improving their river.
Haley Mirr (12:52):
So Ken, I'd love to know from your perspective as a broker who values these things, what could something like this have an impact just on appraisal value of some of these private landowners?
Ken Mirr (13:05):
Well, I love listening you guys talked about because I think I used to be a public lands attorney and I think about back in the day, public lands were you have a right to fish as water comes through and all the public lands that we do have and things. And then what you stop when you see the rivers crossing into private lands. And heck, I own part of the ranch, small ranch, only 160 acres on the upper Colorado River at one point. And when we look at properties, once, of course, you look at the land values, then you look at if you have water rights, you have water from the Colorado river, but then you start actually identifying the recreational attributes of any property, be it hunting. And then when you start getting into fishing, you look at the quality of the fishery and things of that nature.
(13:53):
And if it's passing through a ranch, when we look at it, that quality of the fishery, you start measuring it. Some people even measure it per square foot of value of that water as it flows through your ranch. And there's a lot of people, like you said, now over the years now, it's built into the system. The value of being on a Colorado Eagle, something in North Park, out of South Park, all these places and all the rivers, especially in Colorado, there's value already built into that, what somebody paid for that property. And so over the years, people, they sell and sell and sell. And you just realize if you're selling something or you own something on a Colorado River with both sides, you have a mile river and a really good fishery, there's absolutely a lot of value in that to the landowner. And so I started looking at those things and saying, boy, how do you change that now because they have to be compensated.
(14:57):
If somebody's going to say they're going to take that right away and make it public to me, again, I believe what you're saying, Governor Ritter, that's tantamount to a taking, however it's enforced, you are taking value away from the property owner. So I do worry about those situations. And I just look around the West and the situations even in Wyoming recently, there was the corner crossing issues and there's a lot more interest.
(15:27):
People talking about, “Oh, it's the billionaires that own all these properties.” Well, it's not. And they do, but so they have a right to still have private ownership and private land ownership. I just, I'm this big proponent of owning private land.That's a value that's basically built into the system too.
Haley Mirr (15:47):
And I would love to know, Dan, even from a habitat perspective, if some of these things were to pass, what would that do to the fishing habitat and the populations of fish that parks and wildlife depends on for some of this recreation? Would this have an impact on that too?
Dan Prenzlow (16:05):
Yeah, absolutely. And thanks for the question. I'll give you a couple … I'll give you an example. I live outside a meeker above the White River and I can overlook the White River. I'll talk about a couple things. There was a battle between, we'll just put it a court case, between landowners here and access and a lot of that battle was about when even, and I don't need to get into detail or talk about whom, but it was really about when they could fish and could they fish in the spring and that would potentially affect the reds, which is basically the nest of a female rainbow trout and in the fall could be a brown trout, et cetera. But waiting in the streams could disrupt that spawning habitat. And so that was one of the biggest pivotal parts of a lawsuit. And so to your point, so waking a river is, whether it's public or private, somebody ought to know what they're doing.
(17:20):
And I will tell you, there's more of an impact generally, no matter what, when it's public land. It just gets a lot more use mostly. There are examples where private land gets a ton of use, but for the most part, public land, even though we worked at CPW very, very hard at managing wonderful properties for the public to their benefit, but they just get a lot of use and that can affect the habitat.
(17:50):
I'll give you an example. The property across from me is in a permanent access easement that the old division of wildlife, Colorado Partial Wildlife, they traded hayground in the '60s for permanent fishing access on the river. And there's three places you can join the river. And I've lived here since 1990 on and off and dramatically changed how many people fish this river now and the public spot. And the landowner would love to have that easement back and we won't give it to them because it's too valuable for the public. And so what I'll do is kind of transfer real quick. There's been lots of discussion about land and land value and a little bit of habitat, but Parks and Wildlife and the Old Division of Wildlife has spent millions and millions and millions of dollars getting access via fee title or easement with access allowed or just fishing easements or leases.
(18:54):
All of these affect property value and affect the public's ability to use that property. And generally, I'm very proud of what we've accomplished. It doesn't mean it's unfettered access on every square inch of Colorado by any stretch. But the most interesting part for me, and the reason I'm working on this subject is every one of those processes I talked about is a willing buyer and a willing seller, not an unwilling seller or buyer or user. And that's what we're talking about when we're talking about a legislative bill and/or a ballot measure to force access onto private land. It will tip over the apple cart.
Haley Mirr (19:48):
So I guess a broader question, what are they trying to solve by changing all these things? Is it just the access? Is that kind of the big motivator or are there other things that they're trying to fix through this? I'll start with you, Governor.
Bill Ritter (20:07):
Yeah, no, I think it's that. It's just stream access by the public and they're trying to get to a place where it's treated differently because it's a river or a stream than it's treated in other places in the West. And I think Dan is right, this isn't just about fishing, it can be about other things as well. And so that's, I think the real motivator here is to try and upend that altogether in Colorado. So it looks like we're beyond the time, the time period where there can be signatures filed for a ballot measure, could still be a referred measure. And I think you can look at some things that have happened in the last few years and see what can go on a ballot. I mean, we managed wolf-free introduction by a ballot and you've got 53 counties in Colorado that only have about 15% of the population, and those are the counties that'll be most impacted by wolf reintroduction.
(21:18):
And you have 85% of the people living in 11 or 12 counties, and that the ballot isn't always a fair way for us to make decisions about these issues that impact rural areas in a bigger way than they may impact anything close to the front range or within a 30 mile corridor of I- 25. We had the Mountain Lion Hunting Ban on the ballot amendment 127 in our last, I think it was 2024. And again, you've got 200 scientists who used to work for Dan Prinslow when he was the director who pay attention to issues around the science of this and instead we put that on a ballot. And so I'm afraid of what the outcome could be if this is a ballot measure and you have something that takes a good 45-minute podcast to explain how that then is treated by the public when it kind of sounds good, right, that the public would have access to streams and to rivers.
(22:27):
That sounds nice, but there's so much more that goes into it that is both a legal construct and economic construct that has to be taken into consideration before us doing something and probably should never do it on the ballot.
Haley Mirr (22:44):
Well, that brings up a question when you were discussing how you solved some of the issues in 2010 and 2011, it seems like if those would still arise even with an initiative like this to be placed on landowners, because it seems like there's a legal gray area that still exists within some of these measures if they were to pass.
Bill Ritter (23:04):
Yeah, I think that's really fair. Not just there is a legal gray area, even it's arguable there's a legal gray area now, but we have a way of doing this. We have a status quo that has operated fairly well for Colorado for a very long time, not just since 2010. And I want to be really clear, Dan and I both want to be able to float rivers over private property That we think is the way we are handling this in practice now, and that's a good and right thing. But there are so many problems occasioned by taking this to either a ballot or taking it even into the legislature and trying to legislate some solutions. I think my experience can be in something like this, there can be some really serious unintended consequences of doing that when we actually don't experience those unintended consequences in the way we practice the status quo.
(24:03):
And that's why I think, and I shouldn't speak for Dan, but I think that for my part, I know that I don't want to change that. I floated the Arkansas River on Saturday. I floated with a good friend of mine. We floated across private water, but nobody disturbed us. Nobody hassled us. We didn't get out. We didn't anchor. We didn't have to do any of those things. We respected what the status quo is, and that's what I think we need to keep and not try and change either through a ballot measure or legislation.
Haley Mirr (24:34):
And Dan, I'll let you now speak how you feel because I know governor didn't want to speak for you there.
Dan Prenzlow (24:38):
Yeah, no, he hit the nail on the head and he can speak for me on that issue. The thing I might add is that the status quo, is it perfect? No. And one of the things we hear from the right to float people is, well, we just want a statute to codifies it. Well, that's interesting because a statute immediately, again, as Governor Ritter discussed, the private, the bottom and the banks are private now, and so is the ear above it. And so you're talking about a legal thing just to make a statutory change, and there are potential issues with that. There's actually, you could play devil's advocate in this and say that the floaters today, including rafters on the Arkansas, which is a huge economic, and nobody's trying to get rid of that, could actually lose their ability to do that if somebody takes this to court and wins in a court that you can enforce your private land.
(25:43):
So this can go either way. That's why we believe a status quo, it is a good solution and it is not in search of it. There is no excellent solution on this in our opinion whatsoever. You will hear again, well, you ask the question, what do the groups that are pushing this want? Well, they really want access, but you'll occasionally hear, “Well, we really want a chance to portage safety.” Or if somebody has a heart attack, well, let me just tell you who … I used to have 400 enforcement officers work for me. Nobody's ever going to get a ticket if somebody gets out because somebody's rafting and has a heart has to go through private land. So these are misnomers. There's an occasional flare up. I mean, the last flare up, significant flareup Governor Ritter talked about, right? One was in 2010 and one was a few years later on the Arkansas on the person who was trying to get arrested so he could take this to court.
(26:46):
So what's the saying? The solution is already here.
Haley Mirr (26:58):
Yeah. And Ken, I'd love to know your opinion. We talk about a lot of the advocates trying to get access, but from a landowner's perspective, what are some of the feelings or thoughts that you've heard from some of the people that we work with?
Ken Mirr (27:14):
Well, again, it's just a sense of private property rights and it's always been clear in Colorado. So these are changes. It's taken clarity and compounding it and make it unclear as what they're kind of moving towards in my regard. I just think too, we're really blessed in Colorado with great outdoors Colorado and a lot of different mechanisms. And I think Dan was talking about it earlier too. We acquire a lot of public access for fishing and hunting. We just worked on a property just recently where we sold the Tolen Ranch to the state working with the Conservation Fund, and that was funding through the habitat stamp. And Colorado just keeps going out of its way to keep acquiring properties to do things to … Open space is just kind of part and parcel of what Colorado does, and we're blessed. And Dan was mentioning too, all the acquisitions, all these access rights.
(28:21):
And I think the system is … And that's why we do it, is we recognize that there's value in these things. So we'll pay either for the fee title or conservation easement or a access agreement to provide access to these places. And I don't own a bunch of ranches personally, we do sell them, but how often do we float down different places and do this?
(28:50):
It's been accepted in the test of time. I just don't, quite frankly, I just think that these are just some ideas and I'm not supposed to say an opinion probably, but I just find it … I don't know. It's kind of like I just really believe our country's based on selling land and or establishing value in private land rights. And I'm just very comfortable in my discipline of looking at how we treat land and water and all these things, that these are rights that we have. And so if you're going to do it, well, I guess you got to pay for it. And I don't know how we're going to pay for this if that was to become a viable alternative. Yeah.
Haley Mirr (29:34):
And I guess, where do you see this headed then, Governor? Do you see these things? Obviously there's been public pressure. There's a lot of people moving to the state. There's some different opinions and ideas coming out, but where do you see this headed in the next couple years and how can people stay educated and stay on top of it?
Bill Ritter (29:54):
Well, I think the folks who are supportive of stream access on What's currently private property are probably not going away. I think they have support that's broader than just Colorado support. Like I said, it's kind of a movement around the West to try and be able to get that and grant it. And so I think we have to keep up our opposition to it. We have to have reasoned discussions with policymakers to ensure that they understand these issues, because as I said before, can feel kind of good to talk about greater public access. Ken, I really appreciate your point.
(30:33):
Greater outdoors Colorado, Trust for Public Lands, the Nature Conservancy, all these groups that have worked really hard to ensure that we do our level best of trying to ensure there's public access, creating state parks, creating conservation easements on water, creating state easements so that the public can access it. We do a pretty good job of that, but I think that it'd be a significant issue for the people of Colorado if we were to embark upon a political fight over stream access, given the fact that what we have, we do believe is working well. And yet, I think to answer your question, I don't think they're going to go away. I think we'll have to keep addressing this with policymakers until there's a decision made that the folks inside the dome and the legislature are not going to refer a measure or not going to vote on a measure that involves changing what the status quo is.
Haley Mirr (31:36):
And Dan, where do you see it from your perspective? I know you deal a lot with public lands and the CPW. Where do you see this headed? And do you see there being any type of resolution between the parties? I know that's a broad question, that's what you guys are all trying to figure out, but I'd love to know from your perspective.
Dan Prenzlow (31:58):
Yeah, I mean, it's such a broad question. I'm not sure I know exactly how to answer that from my historical perspective, but there are instances where people trespass now on private land, fishing or hunting or just criminal trespass or civil trespass. And at least Colorado Parks and Wildlife Officers, they go to a lot of those calls. Some of the sheriff deputies will go to those calls, but it's generally pretty cut and dried now. And so I can't even fathom if we get into the legislature or create what's even more confounding because even though right now we're following what is the Attorney General's opinion from the late '70s that Governor Ritter talked about, that basically says, and it's an opinion, but if you put that in law, you're going to have all kinds of litigation over that. And what it says now and what the real practice is, is if you don't get out and you don't anchor and pull up to a tree and you don't get out and land a fish, whatever, if you incidentally touch a rock, I don't think anybody says a word, but if you get out of your boat or you trespass and get off the bank or you access through private land, if the landowner so chooses and it's up to the landowner, they can press charges and our officers show up on that.
(33:30):
But if we open Pandora's box, I'm not quite sure what that will entail because there will be lawsuits for, until I'm probably well past this side of the earth in Colorado because of this issue. And so again, I think what's going on today is really there is no significant issue that I'm aware of. There's occasional flareups, but I can't even name those. I'm not a put your head in the sand kind of person whatsoever, but we're looking for a problem here, not we. Some of these groups are looking for a problem that I'm not sure they want to bite off.
Haley Mirr (34:15):
I'd love to know, and you guys mentioned some of the groups. Who are some of the groups that are educating people on why this might impact landowners and the unseen consequences? What are some groups that people should be aware of when trying to educate themselves a little bit more about the issue?
Dan Prenzlow (34:33):
Interesting. I'll take a stab at that and then I'd love Governor Ritter to jump back in. But we are probably Colorado Water Conservation Alliance, the group that Bill and I belong to, are really trying to get out ahead of this and have this discussion. So I mean, you'll hear it discussed about property owners, but I would hate to say it, but we're probably the tip of the spear. There's a group or so, and I'll have Bill jump in that work at the State House. And a lot of entities are paying attention to what impact this will have on private land, but Colorado Water Conservation Alliance is quite frankly on the front of this, making sure that we're paying attention to what's going on.
Haley Mirr (35:28):
Great. And Governor, are there other kind of groups that you wanted to have people aware of?
Bill Ritter (35:33):
No, I agree with Dan. There are people who have been working on this for a while, even back in 2010, they were working on it, but they have lobbyists and they work inside the dome. We are the group, I think, that's doing the most outside of that to talk to stakeholders, to enlist support. We've had a few different counties on the Western Slope have their county commissions actually write letters of support in favor of our position, which is to do nothing. And so that's part of our education and part of our work is to talk to stakeholders outside the dome. There's certainly folks that are good folks lobbying this inside the State House, but Colorado Water Conservation Alliance is, I think, the only one that's doing it the way we're doing it.
Dan Prenzlow (36:21):
I would say it's, sorry, I'll interrupt CWCA.org. I get in trouble from our INE person if I didn't mention that. And you're probably going to end with that, but surely not. Well, maybe it's a plug, but that's how you can kind of stay ahead of this and not trying to end that, but cwca.org would be a great place to start for your listeners to kind of get a little more information in some of the things that we're putting up and just trying to stay ahead of this conversation.
Haley Mirr (36:55):
Yeah. We'll put a lot of that in the show notes just because I think it's good to educate. And there's a lot of different names of different coalitions and things out there. So I want to make sure everyone knows the one that you guys are representing. What are the advocates that you guys are running into? I'm sure when it comes to water, when it comes to property rights, it's every kind of person in Colorado that is impacted and who cares about it. Are you guys seeing people from across the aisle shaking hands and really agreeing on these issues right now?
Bill Ritter (37:24):
I'd say absolutely. This is an issue that does cross political lines. Often there are too many issues I think in America that don't, and that's unfortunate, but I think this is not a Republican issue or Democratic issue. It's not a red or a blue issue. This is something that people care a great deal about. And I think Ken earlier talking about property rights, I think that's true of property rights. And that at its essence, that's what this is, is a property rights issue, which is something that absolutely crosses all political boundaries. And it's foundational to who we've been at as a country, and this is, in a way, sort of representative of that foundation.
Haley Mirr (38:10):
I would agree.
Bill Ritter (38:11):
Yeah.
Ken Mirr (38:12):
Hey, we agree, Haley.
Haley Mirr (38:14):
I know. Doesn't always happen, but- It's good when it does. Well, I just wanted to thank you both for taking time. I know you have busy schedules, but we have continued to hear murmurings of this. We've sat in on conversations and we just wanted to hear from the experts on what's going on to educate the people that listen to us. So thank you so much for taking time to be on our show today. Appreciate it. Well,
Bill Ritter (38:40):
Thank you. Thanks, Hailey. And thanks, Ken. Thanks, Dan.
Dan Prenzlow (38:43):
Yeah. Thank you all. I very much appreciate it. And sorry, my camera wasn't working, so have a blessed day.
Haley Mirr (38:52):
You're good.
Dan Prenzlow (38:52):
Pray for rain and snow coming tomorrow. Pray for rain.
Haley Mirr (38:55):
Pray for rain and snow.
Ken Mirr (38:56):
Yes, I hear about that. And next time I'm up in Meeker area. Dan, I need to give you a call. I need to make sure you're up there.
Dan Prenzlow (39:03):
Give me a call and I'll show you some public and some private water. There you go.
Haley Mirr (39:08):
There you go. Well, thank you all and good luck with everything. We'll be monitoring everything as it goes along.
Bill Ritter (39:14):
Thanks so much. Thanks, Haley.
Haley Mirr (39:15):
Thanks for joining us today. To learn more about the Ranch Real Estate Market or our ranch marketing process, make sure to subscribe to our newsletter on our website at murranchgroup.com or give us a call at 303-623-4545. See you next time.